TV and Internet Providers

In this article I’m going to explain a few of the differences between various choices for methods to get on the Internet.

To begin with, let me explain the two general types of Internet connection before I get more in-depth about some of the more specific ways inside these two larger categories.

When when one looks at it as basically as possible there are two general computer terms for differet Internet connection types: dialup and “broadband”.

Dialup is, as you may know, the older way to connect to the Internet, where you use a dialup modem. Dialup modems have been around far longer than most people know: I bought my first one around 1986 and they date back to in the 1960s.

It was a “1200 bps” (bps is a measurement of how fast it works) modem that I bought for around  $200 for back in the day. Dialup modems hit a maximum speed of 56K bps a good ten years or more ago, and now can be bought for less than  $10 if you go to the right place.

So that’s about 46 times faster, and 20 times less expensive.

Now you may think to yourself “Well that must be pretty fast then!”

If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong.

Dialup is old technology, and hasn’t been improved in about ten years, which means it’s about 150 years out of date relatively speaking!

The bottom line is, dialup = slow.

Many computer users are stuck in the stone age of dialup, either because they don’t see any reason not to, or they have no choice where they live.

Unfortunately,even if you are currently using dialup and think “it’s good enough, so why bother upgrading?”– you are making a mistake.

I’ll tell you why that is in a moment.

First, I should discuss the primary alternative to dialup. I’m talking about”broadband”, which generally just means “fast Internet”.

Broadband can be found in a variety of varieties, with a range of speeds, all of them much faster than dialup.

Aside from way faster, broadband generally doesn’t tie up your phone line, so people you know don’t get busy signals when they try calling you, and you’re able to make phone calls while you’re connected to the Internet.

The two most commonplace different types of broadband are cable and DSL. Cable internet comes over the same cable as cable TV, and is available from many different companies using a variety of different brands– Roadrunner is one example of cable internet.

DSL actually comes over your phone lines like dialup, but is much quicker and, much like cable Internet, you can place phone calls while you’re online.

You also have less-used choices such as satellite, which gives you fairly speedy connections to the Internet by sending the signal through a satellite dish like satellite TV. It’s slow for broadband, but quite a bit faster than dialup. It’s mainly used by people in less developed areas who don’t have any better choice.

What I suggest to most people who ask is to get DSL, if they can get it where you live. In most cases it’s just a little more expensive than dialup is, and in some cases it’s the same price or even costs less!

It’s not usually as speedy as cable Internet, but it’s still plenty fast for most people, and lets you do a lot of things that just aren’t possible (or are extremely irritatingly slow) on dialup, for example, viewing videos on YouTube or other sites, or downloading big files.

Which brings me to one of the biggest reasons I think people should stop using dialup and switch to some kind of broadband — downloading large files.

You maybe be under the impression that you never do that, but the thing is… Maybe you do (or should be) and don’t realize it.

To start with, computer users are sending around large pictures(or several smaller images), or even videos by email constantly these days.

If you’re on dialup and you tried checking your email and it never seemed to be able to get the new messages, or it took forever to do it, you may have become a victim of this.

So that’s one reason.

But there’s an much more critical one: computers require something called “security updates” or “patches” which are critically important to download. It’s important for both Microsoft Windows or Macs.

Without these patches, your computer can be vulnerable to invasion by viruses, worms, and other threats.

But these security updates ( think Windows Update, or Apple’s Software Update) sometimes can be very large files.

So large that it can take hours and hours, or even DAYS to get. And if you don’t download them, your computer is left at risk.

Which leaves you up a creek if you’re stuck using dialup.

So seriously consider about upgrading if you haven’t already, and forward this to your friends who haven’t. And remember there are a variety good sites out there that offer basic computer training, so it’s perfectly normal to seek to learn more if you need to.