this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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Enthusiasts bond twelve 56K modems together to set dial-up broadband records — a dozen screeching boxes achieve record 668 kbps download speeds | Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 3 months ago by Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to c/hardware@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/post/504934

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[–] tal@olio.cafe 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Specific to what theylre doing here, the problem is that analog modems are really designed around working around the limitations of past telco systems, doing data transport over systems designed to move only voice, and those mostly don't exist any more.

I mean, it's theoretically possible that you have 12 analog lines available to you and no way to directly put digital data on a line, but I'd guess that it's not very likely. I was actually looking to see if there are still any ISPs in the US that provide nationwide dial-up internet service at all, and IIRC, the answer is "yes", but it's down to one or two, and I suspect that they're just doing it because they basically have all the remaining users for whom the technical barrier of switching to some form of digital transport is too much of a hurdle.

EDIT: Also, there are various forms of wireless Internet now. IIRC, one gets about 100 ms of latency on a PPP connection running over an analog modem. I bet that even LEO satellite Internet like Starlink beats that on latency.

kagis

https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1470-99699-90

Latency ranges between 25 and 60 ms on land, and 100+ ms in certain remote locations (e.g. Oceans, Islands, Antarctica, Alaska, Northern Canada, etc.).

Yeah. And that's gonna be one of the weakest points of satellite Internet service.