You get a call from a rural customer who uses dialup as an I

You get a call from a rural customer who uses dial-up as an Internet connection because no other service is available in her area. She wants to know if there is any way to get a faster data speed than 56k. What do you tell her?

A. You tell her that even with a 56k modem, she likely gets only 40–50k throughput on average and there’s absolutely no way to provide a faster data speed using dial-up.

B. You tell her that with a 56k modem, she always gets 56k data throughput, but that’s the fastest data transfer speed she can ever get using dial-up.

C. You tell her that even with a 56k modem, she likely gets only 40–50k throughput on average, but she might be able to exceed the 56k limit using compression.

D. You tell her that with a 56k modem, she always gets 56k data throughput, but she might be able to exceed that limit using signal acceleration.

Solution

C. 56 Kbits/s data throughput is the theoretical maximum data speed anyone using dial-up can expect to attain; however, on average, actual data speeds are more in the 40 to 50k range. Compression algorithms can achieve greater speeds, but the speeds are variable.