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Netscape dial-up accelerated

Hi Cluster5,

While I don't know how Netscape's accelerator works, I can tell you about the one we use (Nexicom).

Here's the answers to your questions:

1 - Pages appear to load at speeds up to 19x the speed of a 56k connection.

2 - It works by running software on the local PC that essentially talks to a proxy server in the ISP's data center. When you request a web page, it goes to the proxy server, and it donwloads the page for you (also caches pages). It then zips up the file and sends it across the 56k connection compressed. The software will usually display the text first, then the images, and the images will get progressively better in quality as it loads (they start of very compressed and blotchy).

3 - It says "up to" because it really depends on what the web page contains, and the quality of the dialup connection. If the page contains entirely text, you won't see the full 19x speed increase, as it really only helps with images.

Keep in mind that these programs usually only work with web pages, and it won't work with any P2P programs (that I know of). They may also help with downloading email.

Hope that answers your question!

Bruce

The idea of having additional software running just for what should be a simple connection irks me.

Plus, with proxy, wouldn't there be issues with pages that are constituted of dynamic data (like discussion forums)?

Sorry cluster5 ... I should have clarified on the proxy part.

It sets itself up as a proxy in your browser settings (IE, Netscape, Firefox i know for sure). I dont think it acts like a traditional proxy, but in fact downloads the pages live as you request them.

I'm not 100% sure on how the server side of it works, as it isn't any of my responsibility, but I can find out if you want.

Bruce

Netscape dial-up is AOL dial-up actually.. i would not even touch it with a stick plus the software is Windows only.

reply to cluster5
Plus keep in mind that any speed benefit is ONLY on HTTP traffic, and ONLY on compressible content (read: HTML, JS, CSS, XML). Nothing else. Images aren't going to compress well (unless they're recompressing at lower quality or converting GIFs to PNGs), and most files you'd download are already compressed.

Plus, it's DIALUP. In this day and age where Bell will sell you a year of 5mbit DSL for an average of $24.78 per month, or $15.45 per month for 12 months of basic DSL (less if they have free months off, which they probably do), why would you get dialup? I mean, pay five bucks a month more and get basic DSL at least.

"A freind of mine lives in the boonies." (and cannot get broadband) is a very good reason why one would get dialup... not everyone actually can get broadband you know. Well, I suppose there's satellite, or getting the telco/cableco to lay new fibre/cable/whatever to you... but the price for that isn't exactly what I'd call "reasonable".

I would say just get the regular dialup, the "acceleration" and proxies are probably more trouble than it's worse (IMHO), and definately not worth the extra $10/mo. I don't know how Videotron's PPP is set up, but I did manage to pull 20-30KB/s off 56k dialup transferring text files with PPP compression wayy back in the day (Microsoft's FTP indexes if you're curious). I don't know if ISPs still enable PPP compression... (or of Windows supports it for that matter...)

reply to cluster5
Not to mention that you can set up your own proxies if you rent a dedicated server or virtual private server at a nearby datacenter :P

One could grab a VPS, and install a proxy that cached and compressed, and serve several dialup users.

I'm an advocate of a hybrid approach for the boonies. Get both DSL/Satellite. Use Satellite for high-bandwidth operations (Downloading, streaming, surfing, etc), and use dialup for low-latency operations (VoIP, gaming, etc). Much of the latency in dialup internet is usually due to the use of low quality winmodems. By switching from an onboard winmodem (in the form of an audiomodem riser card) to an ISA hardware modem, I knocked about 50ms or more off my ping (250ish down to 200ish), which is more than good enough for twitch games (especially those that feature latency correction, such as Half-Life 1 and 2 based games).

Furthermore, that was in the days of v.90, not the newer v.92. Modem technology has progressed a bit since the days of my ISA v.90 modem. A high quality US Robotics modem has some particularly nice gaming-related features that help keep latency down for gaming, and bandwidth high enough for VoIP (Which IIRC only requires 32kbit of bandwidth).

So, I'd say, if you're in the boonies, go grab satellite internet, and simultaneously a modem such as this one:

»www.usr.com/products/home/home-p···USR5610B

Which seems to be a good, modern, hardware (controller-based) modem. With such a modem, pings of 150ms to game servers on a decent ISP should be possible. On DSL I often play on servers with as much latency! The above linked modem supports v.92 (which is good, higher bandwidth and lower latencies than v.90), the gaming mode (which probably changes buffering methods), and something about line auto-sensing, which sounds really cool but might just be marketing.

Also, don't skimp on the dialup ISP. The dialup ISP can make all the difference, where shaving off every bit of latency matters.