How can it be so much faster than a modem even though it uses a regular phone line?
Analog modems send their signals through the public switched telephone network, the same one that connects ordinary telephones. ADSL modems “piggyback” their signals on top of the voice signal. On the phone company’s premises, the line gets split – the voice calls are sent to the public switched telephone network, and the data transmission goes to the Internet. This method moves data off the phone companies’ lines and instead uses connections optimised for carrying Internet traffic.
