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Acceleration: Speed Enhancements have come of age |
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Speed, as Mr. Einstein so informed us, is a most relative thing, one that has as much to do with the observer as the object in motion. For a few years I never even thought about optimizing web speed, as I was one of the privileged few to be Autobahning on a T1. Mainlining in real time I had no need to tweak my machine to rev up my surfing speed.
Then life happened and the falling Twin Towers set off a domino effect that ultimately left me driving a Jetta (you want to talk speed; I'd rather talk gas mileage) in the real world and chugging along on a 56k Zoom in the virtual world. Not so incidentally that's about 40k in modem overkill thanks to my town's exceptionally stodgy phone lines. Now it was my turn to tweak. I bought more ram, went text only, increased my cache, decreased my refresh frequency and still I was feeling as frustrated as Prufrock measuring my life in byte-sized coffee spoons. I grow old I grow old, waiting for my pages to download...
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| Avoid the land of persistent pop-ups. |
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Of course for every problem one encounter in life, the World Wide Web has an answer, usually dozens of answers, some better than others. So heretofore be warned. Do not go searching the web for accelerators, especially if lack of speed is what drives you to search in the first place. Knowing how hungry people are for speed, dozens of would be accelerator hawkers are waiting to lure the unsuspecting in. Just like when searching for anti-popup devices, you will find yourself ironically deluged with dozens of pop-ups and persistent pages that will slow your computer to a death crawl. You will become engaged in a clicking battle you cannot win, for these people who develop accelerators are cunning folk and have invented millions of ways to thwart your efforts to avoid pop-ups, and cascading pages. You will be inundated with offers of everything from sex with Lilly to Viagra to dating services (leading one to believe that people with slow internet connections have even bigger problems than their surfing speed.) Some of these pages are so deviously constructed they will not even let you quit your browser without shutting down your computer. If you need an accelerator you must be clueless -- so the reasoning must go -- with extra cash to spend that you aren't using on broadband.
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| Acceleration really does work now |
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However there are some products out there that really do work today, providing that you are running a PC. There are three ways to go about accelerating your web experience. The first is to resort to hardware and or software enhancements for your machine which can range anywhere from free (remember the pop-ups) to several grand.
A second way to increase dialup speed is via a channel bond where two or more V.90 or V.92 modems can be hooked together for multiplying the speed. At one of our sponsors you can purchase such a service for $29.95 per month. A reliable improvement and cheaper than broadband albeit still a third the speed. Just multiply your current connection speed by two (or more, if you have more phone lines) to estimate the speed your phone lines will allow with a channel bond.
A third method is to hire an accelerator service that for a monthly fee will provide you with anywhere from three to eight times the speed of your current connection be it dial-up or broadband. While in the past such accelerator services were of questionable value, currently there are some products that really are quite effective. Many ISPs now offer deals on accelerator services for an extra monthly fee of anywhere from $4.99 to $8.99. And while there is a bunch of these services, two in particular have caught my eye. The leader in web acceleration at this writing is Propel.com whose accelerator has received numerous rave reviews and offers excellent straightforward info at its website. The other that intrigues me is BrowseBlast, primarily because one of the companies that I've come to trust, (let's call it XYZ) carries it. If I need info I always go to XYZ's interactive help line because I know that in less than two minutes I will get a web-techie who's just dying to share some numbers.
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| Brett's Take |
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This time I got Brett, two years with the company. I asked him about their web accelerator, which their advertising team brags is 'up to 6 times faster than a typical dial-up connection.'
Brett: This is Brett, how may I help you?
Acougar: Hello Brett
Acougar: I was doing a review on web accelerators and wanted to know a few things About BrowseBlast
Brett: ok
Acougar: Is it really six times as fast?
Brett: No
(You see why I love these guys)
Brett: Not in the strictest sense
(His Darwinian sense of survival kicked in)
Acougar: What can people expect?
Brett: What it will do is compress graphical data and text and send them; then the software will decompress it -- though the quality of the images is lower
(Reduced quality images can be right-clicked up to their original quality.)
Acougar: Would it be fair to say it will make surfing twice as fast?
Brett: For the most part it will increase surfing pages about 6 times as fast...it has no effect on the speed of downloads or e-mail
Acougar: How popular has it been?
Brett: Fairly popular. You'll either really like it or not like it at all...
Acougar: Why would someone not like it?
Brett: The types of sites they like...Things with a lot of Java or shockwave stuff wouldn't be sped up at all
Acougar: Is that true of other accelerators?
Brett: It is true for all accelerators. Nothing can actually change the speed of the connection; the maximum throughput you can get is 53,333 kb/s. Though other accelerators may use a different compression method so that graphics aren't diminished they are all basically the same
Acougar: What about for Macs?
Brett: I am checking now. Looks like a future release will be Mac compatible. I think it may be the one that we are currently beta testing
Acougar: Is dialup dropping off at all due to broadband?
Brett: Not dropping off as much as one would think.
Acougar: It's surprising.
Brett: Indeed it is
Acougar: Any idea what percentage of customers use the accelerator?
Brett: Around 3-5%
Acougar: Wow! What about new accounts?
Brett: A bit higher, probably in the area of 15%.
Acougar: Anything else exciting coming down the pike?
(Then we talked about Hotspotzz, XYZ's future super speed wireless that's starting to sprout up in urban centers, but if you're reading about how to speed up your dial-up, nothing personal but that part of the discussion is way behind your means or conception.)
Acougar: Looking forward to it. Thanks Brett. Anything else to add....?
Brett: Not off the top of my head. Anything else I can answer for you?
Acougar: Check out theisplist.com when you have a chance
Brett: Will do
Acougar: Take care... and thanks
Brett: No problem. Have a nice day
(You got to like him)
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| Dial-up's Stay of Execution |
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Propel employs much of the same techniques as BrowseBlast: compression, memory cache and advancements in maintaining a constant connection. While Propel puts more emphasis on its memory cache, BrowseBlast puts more on its compression highlights. Both are available as downloadable software and payable on a monthly basis.
Propel.com offer its services for $7.95, with a yearly subscription for $59.95. Propel recently announced that it will be bundling its acceleration service with the U.S. Robotics line of analog modems. Via XYZ you can purchase BrowseBlast for $5.95/mo or add it to your service at a reduced rate. You can also spend a bit more, by cutting out the middleman, picking up the service at Browseblast.com for $6.95 a month. Don't you just love Internet marketing?
Ultimately, code barriers will be worked out and I imagine most of your first rate services will begin utilizing accelerators as a matter of course. It's advent creates a host of marketing opportunities and the first ISP's that make accelerators standard fare for no additional charge will steal the market, providing they can sell the public on the idea that acceleration is no longer a myth. This should not be hard to do, as people love to find a reason to hang on to their cherished dial-ups. |
2003-05-21 09:53:48
ACougar
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