Dial-Up Internet Obituary, Free Essay Sample

Dial-up internet, the beloved internet provider that was adored by everybody on a global scale because of its speed in the early 1990s had its last breath with the introduction of broadband and other digital subscriber lines. It, therefore, barely survived for two decades. As it is known, dial-up internet was a form of internet access which used facilities of the public switched telephone network to create the connection to the internet service provider by dialing another telephone number on an unadventurous telephone line. Dial-up internet was born in 1979 by Steve Bellovin and Tom Truscott, graduates of Duke University who are also the father of dial-up internet predecessor known as USENET (Jones, 2014, p. 102). The USENET was a UNIX founded the system which employed dial-up connections to transfer data via telephone modems. He has been in existence since the 1980s through public providers such as NSFNET and was initially offered commercially in 1992 by Sprint before his death in early 2000s.

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Dial-up internet will be remembered for several things he did to people before its death. The first one is that it did not require any infrastructure to be established. This was very important to people who were using him since there was no extra cost which was used in his establishment. As such, he was a darling to all people including those who had little money. Secondly, he could operate in both towns and rural areas. This means that he could not be missed by individuals who were in the rural areas. In other words, dial-up internet could be referred to as omnipresent since once when one had a cell phone he could access him irrespective of the development facilities. On the same note, community members will also remember him for the benefits he had for them (Mack, 2014, p. 620). One of the benefits to the community is that to have him, all that one needed was a dial-up account and a modem built into the computer or any internet provider. A person would not require a unique line installed or an exceptional digital subscriber line modem box. Additionally, you could take your dial-up account and connect it to the Internet anywhere so long as there is accessible a phone line. This was useful when one was frequently in places where they could not access fast-speed Internet services. In summary when one was looking for low-cost internet service then dial up was the way to go.

While Dial-up internet was a darling to many individuals because of the above mentioned reasons and the fact that it was the one available at that time, his sickness which has led to its death started when his enemies were introduced into operation. The foes focused on his weaknesses and made sure it was of no use to most individuals. One of the weaknesses was slow speed. According to those who knew him correctly, his significant disadvantage is slow speed (Sagan & Leighton, 2010, p. 120). Notably, it was observed that the fastest dial-up modems have a maximum speed of 53kbit/s -this is similar to 0.053 megabits in a second. In addition, when one using dial-up service, the landline is landline is tied up hence, any other operation cannot take place. As such, not he was the cheapest source of the internet he was also the slowest.

The second weakness which was observed through the existence of dial-up internet is that it required a permanent phone line, which can be phoned to connect to the Internet. Therefore, one cannot continuously carry his/her Internet along with them, like other technologies. Absolutely, one can use dial-up internet from other places but in the existence of phone line of a similar service provider in that place. However, when was using a laptop, he/she could not employ the use it since they needed an alternative landline connection at the area they are going to stay or have been in possession of a wireless card.

The death of dial-up internet was caused by the introduction of the broadband. When the broadband which belongs to the digital subscriber line was introduced in the early 2000s, dial-up internet was in its bed death waiting for his day to get buried (Wallace, 2015, p. 111). Broadband compelled users who were of great friends of dial-up internet to desert him. Therefore, he was unable to get resources that could make it survive since broadband came up with the specific specification which people wanted. The first one was the speed which started at 700kbit/s and above (Dhamdhere & Dovrolis, 2011, p. 1430). In addition, broadband networks are always on, hence prevents the necessity to disconnect and connect at the beginning and end of every session. Lastly, unlike dial-up, broadband does not need the special use of phone lines hence one can access the internet as well as receive calls at the same time.

Another disease that caused the death of dial-up internet is a technological revolution. The technological change in the early 2000s came up with very many devices that could be used to provide internet. These include satellite and FTTx (Schofield, 2012, p. 77). These technological changes became the darlings of the population draining the activities of dial-up internet hence worsening its survival and condition on the deathbed. The introduction of wi-fi as a source of the internet has also contributed to the demise of the loved dial-up internet (Kabat-Zinn, 2015, p. 1482). Currently, the number of people using the wireless internet has gone up hence our brother could not survive mainly because of its speed and convenience. While he still to survive in rural areas, the development that has occurred in the remote areas has ensured that there is power hence installation of digital subscriber line which has finally reduced the survival chances of the dial-up internet.

The death of dial-up internet has therefore jeopardized the lives of most people especially individuals who live rural areas. This is because these regions will have to wait for the installation of the digital subscriber line to browse. On the same note, those who like his cheap cost will also miss him since the digital internet operators are relatively costly. However, all is not lost. It is said that when one door is closed the other is widely opened. It is essential for the people who are affected by the death dial-up internet to change their perception and focus on the digital revolution to work with other beloved methods of accessing the internet. It is our plea to say that we loved you, but nature and technological change loved you most. Rest in peace.

List of References

Dhamdhere, A. and Dovrolis, C., 2011. Twelve years in the evolution of the internet ecosystem. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 19(5), pp.1420-1433.

Jones, O., 2015. Internet Ideas. Megan Publishing Services.

Kabat-Zinn, J., 2015. Mindfulness. Mindfulness, 6(6), pp.1481-1483.

Mack, E.A., 2014. Businesses and the need for speed: The impact of broadband speed on business presence. Telematics and Informatics, 31(4), pp.617-627.

Sagan, P. and Leighton, T., 2010. The Internet & the future of news. Daedalus, 139(2), pp.119-125.

Schofield, H., 2012. Minitel: The rise and fall of the France-wide web. BBC News.

Wallace, P., 2015. The psychology of the Internet. Cambridge University Press.