Alright I bet this question has been asked a lot, but people don't really ask it right in the first place. Here it is: I was wondering if you can use a cable/dsl modem on dial-up internet? What that means is I know the dial-up modem is in your computer. But I was wondering if I could go out and buy a cable/dsl modem and hook it up to my computer or etc., and have a desent internet (most likely dsl internet). (and yes I know that on a cable modem you have to hook it up to a cable input) So is it possible? to hook a cable/dsl modem to your computer and have your dumb slow internet to be a little faster? FYI people: I can't get high speed/dsl people where to poor and can't afford it, yep I said it. Oh and please if you can or not put in URL's so I can go into them and learn whatever I need to learn, etc. And if it helps I have: Netzero internet! Please do anything to help me/or others!

Short answer is there is nothing you can do to increase the speed of a dialup connection. In your case the modem is probably not the limiting factor but the service provider's exchange equipment and the quality & type of phone line. I appreciate cost is your own limiting factor but you get what you pay for. Goin' Fishin' (Some day)

In addition to what Richard says a cable/DSL modem will never work on dial-up. Cable/DSL is digital. Dial-up is analogue. completely different technologies. To use dial-up you need an analouge modem and the absolute maximum speed you are ever going to get is 56 kbs and often a lot less for the reason detailed by Richard. Stuart

There's nothing which will enable you to get high bandwidth content (videos, software downloads, etc.) any faster over an ordinary telephone line. As the previous responses to your post have said, it is the fundamental restriction of the phone line, not the hardware. That being said, there are ways to make browsing through low bandwidth content (text, basic JPEGS and GIFS, etc.) go much faster. Have a couple of different browsers installed on your computer, such as IE, firefox, or Opera. Configure one of the browsers to not show images, play sounds or videos, and turn off java and javascript. You will find browsing through text content much, much faster with this browser and you will be able to "right click" and show any pictures your interested in without wasting bandwidth on ads and stuff you don't care about. The 2nd browser is left with all the bells and whistles enabled for using on sites that make the slow page loading worth the wait. Just open up the 2nd browser and cut and paste the URL when you browse to a site where you really want everything to work the way it's supposed to. There can also be a big difference in the dial-up modem you use. There are websites where you can check the actual speed of your connection. If your not consistently connecting and maintaining 45-50kbps, then you need a better modem or a better phone connection. But, forget about watching video over a telephone line, it ain't ever going to work.