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Local Business  » Accelerated Dial-Up and Your Home Internet Business - Is it a

Accelerated Dial-Up and Your Home Internet Business - Is it a

Article:

I have always been a firm believer that in order to run a

successful Internet business, it is important that you use the

fastest, most reliable Internet connection that is available to

you and that you can reasonably afford. In this article, I'll be

addressing the relatively new form of Internet connection called

accelerated dial-up.

You've probably seen accelerated dial-up services advertised in

television commercials and some of you may even be using it

right now. Most Internet service providers advertise surf speeds

up to 5x faster than standard dial-up. First of all, let's make

it clear that accelerated dial-up is not a form of broadband

or high speed Internet access.

Common industry perception tends to view any speed over 512 Kbps

as broadband when in actuality, the FCC defines broadband as

anything over 200 Kbps while the ITU (International

Telecommunication Union) classifies it as anything upwards of

the 150 Kbps to 200 Kbps range. To put these speeds in

perspective, a standard V.90 dial-up modem will allow you to

browse the web at a maximum speed of 56 Kbps, dependent on both

the hardware your ISP provides, and the quality of your phone

line.

Accelerated dial-up still uses your normal phone line and

still transfers data at the same rate as standard

dial-up. There are three primary reasons that your surfing

experience is 'accelerated' and there is nothing magical about

any of them:

* Web page caching

* Data compression

* Improved network communication

With web page caching, your ISP essentially 'predicts' the pages

that you will visit by caching or storing your frequently

visited pages on its network. Since these cached pages are

already downloaded, the appearance is that you are actually

surfing at faster speeds. Your ISP is making use of what is

called a 'cached network'.

Web accelerators use a compression algorithm to compress certain

text and images before the data is transferred. The accelerator

software that you install on your PC can uncompress the text

data but images cannot be uncompressed. This is because the only

way to compress an image is to reduce its quality by using a

'lossy' compression algorithm and once this takes place, there

is no way to undo the process. Basically, your ISP uses a type

of image optimizer on their end before transferring the data to

you.

The accelerator software also manages the connection between

your modem and the ISP network so that it stays optimized. In

most cases, this simply means that your connections remain

persistent rather than being closed and then re-established.

So, what benefits are provided to your Internet business by

using an accelerated dial-up connection? Put simply --

None.

While accelerated dial-up is wonderful for web browsing and

web-based email retrieval, typically to the tune of another

$3.00 to $6.00 per month, file transfer times, streaming

media transfer times and secure page download times remain

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identical to what you experience with standard dial-up. In

the world of Internet business, faster surfing speeds do not

compensate for faster data transfer rates.

For most online businesses, file transfer and email retrieval

are the two primary tasks that benefit from a high speed

Internet connection. Accelerated dial-up does not provide a

speed boost in either of these areas.

Accelerated dial-up plans often tout faster email access on the

web in addition to the faster surf speeds. It's the 'on the web'

that you need to be aware of. This means that web-based email

services like Yahoo or Hotmail will appear to be faster, but

your local email applications such as Outlook, Netscape or

Eudora will serve up your email as slow as ever.

When it comes to running your Internet business, don't skimp on

your Internet connection. Strive to get the fastest, most

reliable high speed Internet connection that is available in

your area. If you can't immediately afford the 'speed you need',

then upgrade once you get some online profits rolling in. Don't

settle for any type of dial-up unless you absolutely have no

other choice.

About the author:

Bob Davis is a professional database consultant, web designer,

graphic artist, and Internet marketer. If you'd like some solid

tips on starting your own legitimate Internet business, then

visit his Home

Internet Business Guide for Beginners.

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