What is it and what happens
Dial-up is an internet service that connects your PC through your phone line. Unlike DSL, dial-up is not broadband. Dial-up is available in many areas including places with a low population, because it simply runs through your personal phone line. A device connects to the internet through a dial-up connection by dialing a phone number through a modem. A modem is the receive/send part of your internet connection. The modem for dial-up internet is usually built in to the computer but sometimes may not be. Newer computers are less likely to have an internal modem originally installed.
Price and availability
Dial-up is usually low priced around 15 to 25 dollars depending upon the location of the connection. Dial-up is probably one of the most inconvenient internet connections ever due to it’s lack of speed, and the fact of your phone line being tied up every time you connect to the internet. The only way you would be able to use the phone while on the internet is if you get another line, but then you should get DSL because you could pay the same amount of money as you would for a phone line. Dial-up is the best for availability being that it can be used anywhere a working land-line is installed. Pricing may change depending on the provider you go through. The best way to decide on a provider is to find the cheapest and the fastest. One of the cheapest dial-up providers is Netzero, but it is not the fastest. Copper.net is the same price as Netzero, but it has gotten better ratings, so Copper.net is probably one of the best providers out there.
Speed
Bytes is the term used to measure the data in a computer, kilobits being 1000 bytes. Dial-up has an average speed of about 40-50 kilobits per second, meaning that it is very slow. DSL has an average of 128 kilobits per second which is about 10 times faster than the speed of dial-up proving that it is much more efficient. Dial-up speed may also vary depending on the location and condition of the connection. There many different providers you can go through to get a dial-up connection such as : Netzero, Earthlink, Dial-up for less, AT&T, ISP, and many more. The speed may vary depending on the provider you use. To download a one megabyte file using dial-up it takes approximately 5 minutes.
Uses
Dial-up is not good for online gaming. Online gaming would include consoles such as Xbox360, Playstation 3, etc. and other forms of gaming that require you to connect to other people through the internet. VoIP is also not the type of thing for dial-up. Voice over IP include Skype, yahoo video messenger, Google talk and other programs that require your voice to travel over the internet. You probably won’t want to watch a video over a dial-up connection,it may take more than an hour to load. You cannot connect an ipod or any other devices that require wireless networking to dial-up without additional components.
Conclusion
Dial-up is not a very efficient connection even though it is cheap, it does not have the convenient speed to do most of the stuff people like to do. In my opinion Dial-up is not worth it, you should get DSL or cable, than you don’t have to worry about the snail pace of dial-up. If you have dial-up, your not getting your money’s worth. You always tie up a phone line with dial-up, and other options are available in your area but with a different form of internet you can do so much more and not tie up your phone line.