Dual Modem setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Hobbs
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Michael Hobbs

My friend is doing medical transcription at home and is confined to dialup.
She uses a modern P4 computer running XP-Pro. Recently her office changed
systems, requiring her to download from the net, large audio files. Since
cable or DSL is not available, she is being advised to get a dual modem
setup with two internet accounts. Her ISP is advising her that this is
possible, however she is getting advice that it may not be practical or
reliable. Can anyone give us advice on that, and how to set up the computer?
For example is additional software required?

-michael
 
My friend is doing medical transcription at home and is confined to dialup.
She uses a modern P4 computer running XP-Pro. Recently her office changed
systems, requiring her to download from the net, large audio files. Since
cable or DSL is not available, she is being advised to get a dual modem
setup with two internet accounts. Her ISP is advising her that this is
possible, however she is getting advice that it may not be practical or
reliable. Can anyone give us advice on that, and how to set up the computer?
For example is additional software required?

-michael
Click to expand...

Have never done this myself but I know that part of setting this up is that
the ISP supports it. You've already discovered that her ISP does support
this type of connection. Do they have an FAQ at their site for setting it
up?
 
Michael said:
My friend is doing medical transcription at home and is confined to
dialup. She uses a modern P4 computer running XP-Pro. Recently her
office changed systems, requiring her to download from the net, large
audio files. Since cable or DSL is not available, she is being
advised to get a dual modem setup with two internet accounts. Her ISP
is advising her that this is possible, however she is getting advice
that it may not be practical or reliable. Can anyone give us advice
on that, and how to set up the computer? For example is additional
software required?
Click to expand...


HOW TO: Set Up Multiple-Device (Multilink) Dialing in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307849

Notice the requirements:
•Your ISP must support synchronization of multiple modems.
•You need to install multiple modems.
•You need a separate phone line for each modem.
 
Michael Hobbs said:
My friend is doing medical transcription at home and is confined to
dialup.
She uses a modern P4 computer running XP-Pro. Recently her office changed
systems, requiring her to download from the net, large audio files. Since
cable or DSL is not available, she is being advised to get a dual modem
setup with two internet accounts. Her ISP is advising her that this is
possible, however she is getting advice that it may not be practical or
reliable. Can anyone give us advice on that, and how to set up the
computer?
For example is additional software required?

-michael
Click to expand...

I had a dual-modem setup quite some time ago, and I found that downloading
single files wasn't noticeably faster, because I was only using one modem
and one connection. The speed increase was when I was downloading multiple
files from different websites. If I was downloading multiple files from the
same site, sometimes it was faster, but generally not. And, the second modem
to connect was never as fast as the first, no matter what I did.

Overall, it wasn't a particularly good result, and I was tying up two phone
lines instead of just one. The good news was that my ISP would let me dial
in twice at the same price; your friend may need to pay for a second
account. And I had modems lying around that I could use, so that wasn't an
extra expense.

It may be worth a try, but my guess is that it's going to be more trouble
than it's worth. She might be better off just downloading the files over
night, however long it takes. Or, is there someone nearby who had cable or
DSL? It may be cheaper to ask them to download the files and burn them to CD
or buy some time on their computer to do the downloads.
 
She'd be better off asking the owners of the audio files to compress the
files as much as possible.
Michael
 
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