I have a 56k Modem, why can't I connect at 56k Speeds?

So you have a 56k modem, and you want to know why you're not connecting at 56k speeds. The main reason for this is that the farther you are away from your telephone switching station the weaker the signal gets and the slower you will connect.

Basically, computers speak digital and phone lines were designed to transmit sound, or the techie term for sound, analog. Your modem's job is to convert analog to digital and digital back to analog. 56k v.90 technology allows for only 1 digital to analog conversion.

When you load a webpage or check email, digital data sent from Riverside is converted to analog and sent along the phone lines to your computer, at which point your computer's modem converts the signal back to digital so that your computer can understand it. This is the way it works for most people that live within 4 or 5 miles of their local telephone switching station. The problem lies with people that live more than 4 or 5 miles from their telephone switching station. The signal gets so weak that Ameritech converts the analog signal on the way to your computer back to digital, amplifies it, converts it back to analog, and then finishes sending it to your computer at which point your computer's modem converts it back to digital. When this happens, data traveling from Riverside to your computer goes through 2 digital to analog conversions. And 56k technology will not work when there is more than 1 digital to analog conversion.

If you live more than 4-5 miles away from your local telephone switching station, the best you can hope for with a 56k modem is 33,600 kbps.

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