Is DSL Service Different Than Dial-Up?

The standard phone lines that stretch across the skylines in every city, town and village are still the primary mode of Internet connectivity everywhere. Modems inside PCs continue their telltale crackle-ding-ding sound as they connect to an ISP (Internet service provider) at rates around 56 kbps per second. DSL and dial-up both use traditional telephone lines, but DSL changes the standard one-way analog signal to a two-way digital signal. A dial-up connection can only provide Internet access or telephone access at one time, not both. DSL allows users to talk on the phone and surf the web.

The advent of DSL at the end of the 1990s did away, for some people anyway, with dial-up's sluggish download of web pages. Dial-up modems work at a maximum of 56 kbps, though most never even attain the federally regulated maximum of 53 kbps. On the other hand, DSL achieves speed from 256 kbps to 20 mbps (megabits per second). The highest speeds only work on dedicated digital lines not usually available to consumers. DSL revolutionized the Internet and gave people the ability to build higher resolution, video- and music-heavy websites. Without fast Internet, modern social networking is virtually impossible. As of 2011, there are still millions of rural citizens who cannot get DSL access.

Dial-up is cheap but it is also slow. For cash-strapped consumers, who have no real need to get on the Internet other than to check email from time to time, dial-up is still an affordable and viable solution. Consumers who don't want the long and often agonizing wait for modern web pages to load, want to watch videos, listen to music and have the Internet at their fingertips may want to pay the extra costs to get DSL -- higher monthly fees are a trade-off for faster and more reliable Internet access.

All you need for a dial-up Internet connection is a phone line. All you need for a DSL Internet connection is a good enough phone line and a substation within 18,000 feet of your home. That distance is the biggest problem facing telecom companies and consumers; the costs of building substations in rural areas is often too much. In 2009, approximately 74 percent of Americans (over 18) had Internet access, 60 percent used broadband at home, and 55 percent used wireless. Wireless communication devices such as smart phones are more numerous, but many Americans are still using dial-up. All major telecom companies are working to expand their broadband coverage but the changes are slow.