Why is my dial up internet provider so slow?

Answer 1

Cable Slower than Dialup1)One reason why the cable could be so much slower is that a system that old is probably using an ISA bus and slower serial connections for the modem.

I have a system with about the same specs that I use for testing other systems and various maintence. It is hooked up to a network via a 10mbs NIC and is slightly slower on DSL as brand new computers.

If it is possible, you might want to consider switching from cable to DSL internet access. It will be faster and will still not tie up your phoneline.

2)With the computer you are using, I suspect it can't handle the bandwidth your Cable Provider is sending. Traditionally, a dial up connection sends data in 'unit' size of 576. (Think of baking, a sifter can only handle 576 units at a time.) Now when you go broadband, the unit size is now 1472 or 1500. Which means the network card you have, is overloaded as soon as you turn on your computer, because the Main board on that type of system, was never designed for broad band connections. ALso, when using a modem, the computer has the capacity to use the smaller demands of it, and broadband places HUGE demands on computer systems. Typically, when you click on Internet Explorer, there are around 10 different things happening all at the same time, which, in turn, makes everything slow. 3)When my ISP, Comcast, released their 3mbps speed increase I learned a valuable lesson about cable Internet. To achieve maximum bandwidth you cannot have more than one (the main) splitter in between your cable modem and the main cable line coming into your house. Just one extra splitter cost me 50% in terms of download speed. Once the splitter was removed my perfomance increased dramatically. Extremely poor performance, such as this example, could have been caused by poor cable signal, other interference, or too many splitters. I've had the best dsl available, and under equal conditions, standard cable beats dsl and dial up every time. 4)Even an older computer, like that 166 MHz Pentium rig, can handle a few megabytes/second worth of Ethernet bandwidth.

Your cable modem relies on some rather advanced electronics and signalling to get its throughput. The protocols it uses to pass messages allow for retrying transmissions over some errors, and for some downshifting in case the signals aren't being sent or received well.

Your cable modem is probably getting a very marginal signal and sending or receiving data very slowly becasue it has to retry transmissions, re-establish its link with the device it is talking to, and frequently retry transmission.

The poor signal can be caused by a lot of different things. Perhaps there are too many devices connected to the same cable, or you have some poor cabling in your house. It might be that the signal arriving at your house is poor, as well. Even if you have a television video signal that's good enough to watch, the cable modem might be only able to transmit or receive a marginal signal.

Trying to fix the issue yourself means learning more about your cable modem and its built in software, or buying (or borrowing) another one to test as a replacement.

But why not have the cable company come back and double-check your signal strength and installation?

5)

Most likely a bad cable modem. Call your cable modem provider and ask for a replacement.

Answer 2

It is the nature of dial-up connections themselves, not something specific to an ISP. Dial-up connections simply cannot attain a very high bandwidth on POTS telephone lines that were intended for voice communication only.

Answer 3

Because it was not designed for data transmission in the first place, it was designed to carry voices which don't require such a clean line.

Answer 4

Dial up internet service is the slowest type of service. For faster service switch to DSL or cable.