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- 🌅 A New Internet Speed Record
🌅 A New Internet Speed Record
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WHAT TO KNOW
AOL is shutting down its once-ubiquitous dial-up internet service, bringing an end to three decades of slow speeds, iconic sounds, and a tagline so famous Hollywood literally turned it into a movie. AOL, which debuted as “America Online,” grew alongside the internet in the early 2000s, peaking at roughly 25 million users and a $164 billion valuation. Today, just 0.13% of U.S. households with internet access rely on dial-up.
WHY IT MATTERS
Dial-up uses a modem to convert digital data into audio signals that travel over standard phone lines to provide computers with internet access via a phone jack and specialized software. Dial-up has been replaced by broadband, which is now the most common form of internet service and provides speeds around 2,200 times faster than dial-up.
CONNECT THE DOTS
Like most technology, broadband will eventually be replaced, and the tech champing at the bit to push it out the door is fiber optic cables. Optical fibers rely on the speed of light to transmit data, making them incredibly efficient and reliable. Last month, researchers in Japan used fiber optics to set a new data speed record, transmitting 125,000 gigabytes of data per second over 1,120 miles. For perspective, that’s roughly 4 million times faster than the average internet speed in the U.S. and would allow you to download the entire Internet Archive in less than four minutes.