Why did the dial up modem noise sound the same every time? What was the purpose of those sounds as the connection was being made?

Question

I understand that modems used the telephone line to transmit and decode sound into data, but I don’t understand why that noise everyone remembers needed to happen. You didn’t hear sound when you were loading a web page even though sound was being decoded by you modem… what was the purpose for it on start-up?

Edit: Autocorrect typo

In: Technology

Answer 1

To add to what the others have written: in the earlier days of modems (e.g., when modems were 300 baud), there wasn’t any negotiation. The far end was simply what it was: you just had to know what its setting were.

On the one hand, this makes the connection setup time essentially zero time (other than dialing!). On the other, you had to know what the other side was supporting.