Major Limitations Of Dialup Connection

Dialup connection is a technology used to connect to Internet. It is the oldest and most widely used Internet connection technology. This is mainly due to several advantages it holds over other non-dialup forms of Internet access. However, every technology dialup connection has limitations. Most people agree that the dialup access has advantage in its ability to connect through ordinary telephone lines to Internet. Just like most of the modern technologies, dial up connection has its limitations coming hand in had with the advantages. Incidentally, the most prominent limitation of the dial up connection system is that the dial up connection system uses normal telephone lines to connect to Internet! This may be surprising for some people. To explain the above statement, first let us see how dialup connection works...

Using dial up internet access service, you may connect to internet through the telephone line using a modem. The modem dials the access number of the ISP to connect the use to internet. Dialup uses special-purpose network protocols like Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). In this technique, voice fills the low end of the frequency spectrum and data fills the high end. Hence, the data transfer rate of a dial up connection is heavily dependent on the telephone line's ability to transfer them. Unfortunately, in most of the premises around the world and especially in the developing countries, the phone lines are not of good quality. The telephonic conversational data can go through them but he dial up connection could not transmit maximum amount of data. The main reason is that the telephone lines were not specifically installed for dial up connections when they were installed over many years. Hence, the quality of the connection is not always good and speed of data transfer is limited.

You may subscribe to a 'Quite' or a special 'data' line to overcome the above problem. However, they are also not equipped to overcome the limitation to full extent. A "quiet" access number can ensure that your incoming line is problem free. However, there are other line problems a bandwidth distortion can reduce your speed. A special "data" line may give you better data transfer rate. This line is generally more expensive than a standard line. This can take the advantage that dial up connection has over other non-dialup connection when it comes to price.

Another important limitation of the Internet connection is that it is also not dedicated. The Dialup Internet connection is not always on. Users must dial the service provider every time they want to connect to the Internet. Also, Dial-up access can also be termed as a transitory connection. This is because either the user or the ISP terminates the connection. Internet service providers will often set a limit on connection durations to prevent overuse of access. The ISP may also disconnect the user requiring reconnection and the costs and delays associated with that. The user may even not get connection in the pick hours and have to wait to connect to Internet.

Hence, the usage of the telephone lines and transitory nature are two major limitations of a Dialup connection.