Broadband Speeds at Dial-up Prices?

Artera Group has launched a service called Artera Turbo that promises to boost dial-up speeds by an average of five times, at just $10 a month--and offers a free two-week trial for skeptics.

Artera Turbo works by routing your Internet connection through its own servers, which automatically shrink images, block pop-up and banner ads, and cache popular Web pages. On your PC, Artera Turbo client software performs a handful of other tricks to accelerate surfing, such as optimization of modem settings and additional caching of Web pages on your hard drive so the sites you visit regularly will load even faster.

Artera Turbo may increase Web surfing speeds, but its methods typically won't substantially reduce the time straight file downloads or file transfers take. The service also claims to boost broadband modem speeds, but it's primary appeal will be with 56k dial-up modem users. Artera Group released a similar service in the spring geared towards small offices, which required additional hardware.

A free trial version of Artera Turbo is available for download.

First Speed Test

Installation of the Artera Turbo software is simple: You answer a few questions and follow step-by-step instructions; the software loads onto the system and you're ready to go.

During an informal test of the service, initial visits to various static Web sites brought pages up just over twice as fast as a regular 56-kbps dial-up modem. Second-time visits to the same sites, however, yielded performance about three times faster than that of a 56-kbps setup.

Whether you'll benefit from Artera Turbo's approach depends greatly on your surfing habits and on whether you're willing to pay for modest speed improvements. Artera Turbo is best suited to people who surf the same Web sites day after day.

The best fit for the service, however, may be with customers of super-cheap ISPs that charge $10 or less per month. For example, pairing budget ISP NetZero with Artera's service could cost less than $20 monthly while yielding a faster dial-up experience.

The Race Is On

Artera Turbo will find competition from a crop of similar products that have sprouted in recent months. All operate on the premise that the closer data lies on a network (or the Internet), the faster your PC can pull it down. A number of add-on accelerators and other speed-boosting tools--even for broadband connections--are also surfacing.

Propel's Propel Accelerator and Proxyconn's Internet Accelerator, for example, are subscription services that route your traffic through their servers to deliver faster Web page surfing.

Propel Accelerator charges a $5 monthly fee and works very similarly to Artera. But Propel can go a step further and block all images on Web pages or turn color images into monochrome ones to make pages load faster. Proxyconn charges $9 monthly and is available as a downloadable service. Version 2.4, released this fall, strips Web sites of banner ads and swats pop-up ads. The company is creating a network of servers at strategic points around the country to bring data closer to your PC.