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Modem

A modem is device that modulates and demodulates data for transmission over analog systems. The analog system can be anything from radio waves, to light in a fiber optics system, or the more commonly thought of electrical connection of phone lines. By modulating a data stream from a PC, a modem can send data anywhere in the world with landline phone service.

Early modems were limited to 300 bits per second transmissions and used acoustic couplers - a microphone and speaker combo that attached to a phone's handset, as AT&T prohibited direct electrical connections to its network. Later advances in component quality, processing power, and more efficient modulation techniques pushed data rates up to 2400, 9600, 14,400 and 33,600 bits per second. These late-model modems approach the theoretical limit for data transmission over an analog phone line of around 35,000 bps. 56K modems, actually receiving data at 53,300 bps, use a purely digital connection for downloads, technically only working as modems when modulating uploaded data.

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