Speed Up Modem Dialup

If you are connecting to the internet through a dialup modem, you might be bothered by the rather long time it takes your computer to connect to your ISP. Unfortunately a modem connection needs to use a negotiation (or handshaking) procedure to establish a connection with the modem on the side of the ISP. This is done to establish the maximum connection speed.

There is a way to speed up the dialup of a modem a little bit though. Using the modem initialization parameters, you can minimize the dialing duration. Follow the steps below to optimize your modem this way:

1. Press and hold the Windows-key and then press the R-key.
2. In the Run dialog box, type devmgmt.msc and click OK.
3. In the Device Manager, open the Modems branch and double-click your modem.
4. In the Modem Properties dialog, select the Advanced tab.
5. In the Extra initialization commands field, type S11=50 and click OK.

This modem setting will reduce the DTMF tone duration to a minimum. The result is the shortest dialing time possible. If your dialup fails after changing this setting, you might need to increase the value of 50. The quality of the phone line and the ISP modem are factors that influence the minimum dialing time.

If you know the modem capabilities of the ISP, you can actually also turn of the V.42 negotiation process. Using register S48 you can disable the negotiation or handshaking process. Enter the string S48=0 to turn it off. You can combine both register options by separating them with a space, e.g. “S11=50 S48=0”.

So next time you need to bring your laptop to a remote location, where dialup is the only way to connect, you do not need to wait forever to get connected!