As I've mentioned before, I do a lot of connecting to the web while I'm traveling in my TM by using my cellphone as a wireless modem. And while my Verizon digital (CDMA) service is available almost anywhere digital voice service is, it's only a pretty slow 14.4K connection (one fourth normal dialup, about 3% of DSL). And if I'm in a analog-only service area, that speed drops to a really poky 9.6K. If you think the internet is slow at 56K, you oughta try it at 9.6K...even simple webpages literally take minutes to load.
So being doubtful about the claims of 5X (or better) acceleration but desperate to try anything, I gave Ositech Communications new
Express Link Service a try (2 week free trial period helped make it pretty easy
). And lo and behold, I found it actually works even better than claimed!!
Unlike most accelerators which just cache pages, this one involves connecting to a special server using a client program; the two use special compression between them of web pages, email, and images to greatly reduce the actual number of bits being transferred. On text, the compression ratio/transfer speedup is usually at least 10X (often as much as 20X); on images (you can set the degree of compression for images) the speedup is typically 2X to 4X.
The bottom line is that it makes 56K act like DSL and even a wireless modem at 14.4K is noticeably faster than a normal 56K dialup. The client program works seemlessly between the browser and the service's acceleration server so it's a no-brainer to use. And the fee isn't too bad at all: $14.95 per quarter or just 5 bucks a month. For those who are stuck with dialup at home or want/need to use dialup to the internet while traveling, this service changes the World Wide Wait into a pretty zippy experience.
Express Link...a web/email accelerator for mobile connectivity
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