Analogue connection

Dial-up

A dial-up modem converts digitaldigital: data measured at discrete intervals, eg a digital watch typically moves from displaying one second to the next without displaying the values in-between signals from a computer to analogueanalogue: continuous data, eg the second hand on an analogue watch displays each second and the space in-between signals that are then sent down the telephone line. A modem on the other end converts the analogue signal back to a digital signal the computer can understand.

An analogue Internet connection

The maximum theoretical connection speed is 56Kbpskilobits per second (Kbps): a measurement of the speed data is being transferred at. Dial-up is very slow by today’s standards and in real world use will typically result in a downloaddownload: the transfer of a file or files from one computer connected to the Internet to another speed of roughly 5KBpskilobytes per second (KBps): a measurement of the speed data is being transferred at.

Phone calls cannot be made whilst connected to the Internet.