What Is Accelerated Dial-Up Service?
Is It For You?
Accelerated dial-up service, also referred to as High Speed, Accelelerator and other ISP specific names is a way to get more web based information to your computer in the same amount of time. It is not a faster connection like DSL.
Accelerated dial-up service requires the following to work on your computer:
- Sotware that will work with your operating system - usually downloaded from your ISP and installed on your computer
- A normal dial-up connection to your ISP
Accelerated dial-up service works by connecting to a special Web server at your ISP. The software you install will automatically connect you to a special server. When you request a web page, the accelerator server will compress some information and send it to your computer where it is expanded to it's original size. Based upon settings that you can usually configure in the accelerator software, images are sent with less information making them lower in quality than you are used to seeing. This is fine for most browsing and if you want the full glorious detail, you can get it with a few configuration changes.
Typical Internet traffic affected:
- Normal Web pages starting with http:
- POP3 and Web based email
- Newsgroup headers and text-based articles
- Animated GIF images may not be animated
Typical Internet traffic not affected:
- Web pages starting with https: - secure websites
- Newsgroup binaries
- Files already compressed
If you do a lot of continuous web browsing, accelerated service can be a real plus. If you read pages occasionally and intermitantly, the accelerator can be more trouble than it's worth at least in its current incarnation at some ISP's. I have noticed that with my service I occasionally have trouble connecting to the accelerator service and sometimes have to refresh my browser, though I suspect this may be related to some Beta software I am testing and not a server problem. Once connected though the service really saves me a lot of time.
If you download a lot of files that are already compressed, the accelerator will not download them any faster.
Not all ISP's have accelerator software that is supported in Vista. If you are using Vista, check with the ISP before signing up for accelerated service.
The technology is fairly new and there have been problems reported. If you are interested in accelerated service but not sure if it is for you, ask if you can have a free trial period or sign up and ask if you can go back to the standard dial-up service if you are unhappy with the performance.
Update: June 10, 2008. According to the SlipStream Website, there are over 2200 ISPs using their web accelerator software. This includes my ISP, Phreego. I have discovered a number of web pages containing images that are not displayed at all if the accelerator is enabled. This includes some Google AdSense referral units. That may be a good thing if you are browsing, but not so good if you are a Google AdSense publisher. You can permanently solve this issue by changing the Image Quality setting to 'Original' at the cost of slower loading web pages of course:
To permanently fix the problem of images not displaying on some Websites for SlipStream users:
- Right Click the accelerator icon in the right side of the tool bar
- Left Click 'Stop Phreego Express' or whatever name your ISP has named the accelerator
- Right Click the accelerator icon in the right side of the tool bar
- Left Click 'Settings...'
- Left Click the 'Image Quality' tab if not already selected
- Left Click on the slide bar icon and move it to the far right
- Under 'Acceleration' it should say 'Minimum' and under 'Image Quality' it should say "Original'
- Left Click the 'OK' button
- Right Click the accelerator icon in the right side of the tool bar
- Left Click 'Start Phreego Express' or whatever name your ISP has named the accelerator
There is another, possibly better, solution. You can leave the image quality and acceleration settings where they are. As a dial-up user you may be used to Right-Clicking on a picture that has not been loaded and selecting 'Show Image' from the menu. If you see an image that has not loaded while the accelerator is enabled, Right Click on the blank image and select 'Show Original Image' near the bottom of the menu. If you have more than one image that is not displayed, Right Click on one of the blank images and Left Click 'Show All Original Images'.
As you can see, web acceleration is not perfect. There are costs and issues involved when using a web accelerator.
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Last Updated August 8, 2008