What actually were those noises that dial-up modems made when connecting? What caused the noise?
In: 15
Simply put, those are the sounds of your modem and the modem at the other end ‘talking’ to eachother to establish standards and communication to make the internet data transfer work.
Each of those different ‘tones’ was a different part of the communication process.
[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a29611456/internet-dialup-modem-sounds/](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a29611456/internet-dialup-modem-sounds/)
It’s pretty well explained visual and audio here.
This video and image gives the sounds in great detail [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abapFJN6glo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abapFJN6glo) [https://oona.windytan.com/posters/dialup-final.png](https://oona.windytan.com/posters/dialup-final.png)
The noise is modem language. That’s how they speak over the telephone
There was a law that said modems must have speakers. That’s because if you dialed the wrong number or lived in a town with an operator then you could dial a person, and if there wasn’t a speaker, you’d just keep clicking the button and getting frustrated that it didn’t work, while some elderly lady’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing and screeching at her when she picked it up.
I have knowledge on this. I can tell you everything.
They can send more than one tone through the line at once. Send a deep tone, and that means ‘0’. Send a high tone and that means ‘1’. That’s a very old & basic way of doing it. Slow tho.
Years later we invented more complicated ways to send data using lots of tones. It was better. And years later even better ways.
There’s now lots of different ways to do it. But when you dial another modem – your modem doesn’t know which language to use – so it asks. ‘Can you use that really good method, or just the crappy older way?’
The original modems needed a real handset to talk through. You put the handset into a rubber thing with a microphone and speaker. Your modem really did speak through the telephone handset. Later on they just built it all in the same box.
When broadband (DSL, or ADSL) appeared, that was just getting rid of the telephone network’s restrictions on sounds only humans can make. Broadband is the exact same thing as a modem except it speaks with VERY high pitched tones and many, many of them at once. A BRroooadd range of frequencies. A broad ..band.. you could say. It has more ..band.. ..width.. 🙂
This whole story also applies to radio and its why smartphones are faster than old phones at data.
The noise is deliberate. It’s so you, the human, can hear the 2 systems negotiating their connection. If the connection failed, you would know through listening to it what the cause of the failure might be.
For example, if my modem called your modem, but your dad answered the call instead then I would actually be able to hear him through my modems speaker. Mine would make the modem sounds, then I’d hear your dad’s garbled voice swearing.
Same if your modem never answered the call. People who were really good at listening to the modem sounds could actually tell if there was a compatibility issue or if the modems were unable to match speeds.
Latest Answers