Internet basics: A modem is Like a Secret Decoder Ring

Always a secret decoder ring when you were a kid? First received a secret message from someone. Then you're used to see the secret decoder ring message of numbers, letters or symbols and their corresponding letters found "decode" the secret message. Finally, you had the secret message back to its original form, so you could read it.

So the secret message can also looks something like this:

* Xyz gera9sor oe piu FJK Owlpen

And after him through theDecoder Ring, it might look like this:

* The Treasury under the boat

You could even do the opposite - make your own secret message by turning the decoder ring to an ordinary sentence into its secret version and then send it to another person with a decoder ring.

And the more you use the ring to get faster, so you could read and / or send your messages in less time.

That is what looks like a modem.

Modem is short for modulator / demodulator. The modulation is likeunder the normal message and it secret. Demodulation is how the secret message and make it back normal.

For example, if you are in a URL address in your browser to a website, the website has already called on another computer as a server. But before the server sends the web page information for you, it is modulated into another version that can be sent via the telephone line uses the Internet to your computer. (There is really no reason to keep anything secret.Rather have phone lines to the human voice signals, carry no information on digital computers.)

The same applies if you send something from your computer, send it to another computer over the Internet (for example, an e-mail). Before the information is sent, change your modem so it can go through the phone line. Then the modem on the other hand, changes it back, then the receiving computer can be read.

And the faster the modem, the faster you can receive and send information over the Internet.

Andis for this reason, a modem like a secret decoder ring.