[X-Newbies] Dialup services

[Randy B.Singer]

Steven Rogers said:

>> ï The same 56K dial-up with TurboMac Acceleration, for surfing up  
>> to six times faster, as low as $7.41 per month
>
>So what the heck would this be? Can they really make the modem go any  
>faster than its already going?


They don't actually make the modem itself any faster.  They use a variety 
of schemes in unison designed to minimize the amount of data that has to 
be downloaded in real time to either your Mac, or the ISP's server.  
These include lossy compression of image data (similar to what is done in 
GIF images) and text data (similar to what Stuffit does when compressing 
a text file), server-side caching, client-side caching, and pre-fetching.

This all works, but not as well, in most instances, as having real 
broadband.



Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html