The unfortunate thing about almost all types of network connection speeds—whether it’s dial-up, Ethernet or WiFi—is that you’ll almost never get data transfer at the maximum rate listed. With dial-up it can be particularly troublesome, especially if you have a noisy telephone line to contend with, because your modem will spend a lot more time correcting errors, which will lead to lower transfer speeds. If you’re dialing long-distance the signal is almost certainly going to be less clear than a local call, because the phone call will be going through more equipment and lines, increasing the risk of data error or signal loss. But one thing you may be able to do to help the connection out at your end is to make sure you’re not using longer phone cables than you need to use — it’s better to use as very short cable between the wall jack and the modem, and to make sure there are as few powered devices located directly beside that cable. It may not solve much, if the problem is located somewhere between you and your ISP however.