 | Chris Owen
is President and founder of Hubris Communications. Until the opening of Hubris' Wichita office, Mr. Owen was the sole network technician and systems administrator of the company. Hubris Communications is a provider of premium Dial-Up, ADSL, SDSL, Wireless, and dedicated Internet Services. Founded in Garden City, Kansas and doing business since July 1995, Hubris Communications, Inc. serves over 3,200 customers in south central and southwestern Kansas. Chris can be reach at (316) 858-3000 or owenc@hubris.net |
Computers & Software
2001-07-01 09:02:00
Can you use two modems to increase speed?
QUESTION: We do not have DSL in our area. I was wondering if it is possible to use two modems in some way to increase the speed at which I can access things on the Internet?
ANSWER: It is possible to "bond" two modems in this way to get a wider connection. This can either be done within the computer with more than internal modem or with an external device designed specifically for this purpose.The latter of these choices is probably the superior solution. Devices like the WebRamp (now owned by Nokia) allow you to connect to the internet simultaneously with up to four modems. These devices then can be connected to your computer via a network card. One advantage of this type of setup is that the combined internet connection is then available to all machines on the network so one or more computers can then share the higher speed connection.This allows normal dialup connections to be combined in order to give you a higher total throughput with your connection.There are a couple of issues to be aware of with this type of situation however. First is that the cost of this solution is probably such that it should really only be considered when there are no other broad band options available. In order to use this type of solution you will need to have at least two phone lines and two separate internet accounts. Assuming average phone line costs of around $30 per line and $20 per internet account that can mean a monthly cost of over $100 per month for this type of connection.Second, it is important to note that although this solution will allow you to have a total bandwidth of twice that of a single modem connection, in most cases you really only have two parallel slower connections, not one higher one. What this means is that if you are using a web browser and looking at web sites with lots of small files that page will appear to load twice as fast. This is because one file can download over one of the connections while another file is downloading over the other one. The files will roughly "alternate" between the two connections to load the total page twice as fast.However, if you are trying to download one large file such as program update or CD image, generally the technology used by these devices will only allow that single file to come in over one of the two connections (there are specialized ways of actually bonding the two connections but those require a special type of connection to your internet provider and can't be used with two normal dialup connections). In these cases the time it takes to download a single large file will not be any faster than if you only have one modem in use.The same type of limitations would apply to any other single connection type applications such as sending or retrieving your email or uploading large files.Although it does have its limitations, for normal web "surfing" however, this type of solution will allow a much "faster" experience than a normal dialup connection. For those locations without any other broadband options this can be a convenient way to improve your internet experience.
