From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdial somebody/something ↔ up phrasal verb1 to get a connection to a computer or telephone over a telephone line2 American English to increase something We are going to dial up our marketing efforts. → dial→ See Verb tabledial-upˈdial-up adjective [only before noun] relating to a telephone line that is used to send information from one computer to another a dial-up connection —dial-up noun [countable]
Examples from the Corpus
dial-up• A dial-up call from London to Aberdeen costs about 30p a minute.• Testers will need a direct connection to the Internet, as opposed to the dial-up connections popular with home Internet subscribers.• As a result, local and national Internet service providers sprang up to sell direct dial-up connections to the Internet.• It's little wonder that the fax machine is so popular and that dial-up E-mail is such a rare species.• Now those who depend on dial-up lines from public telephone systems can enjoy the benefits of integration as well.• These providers are often dial-up linkages of lower bandwidth when compared to telecom and cable highways.• Providers can offer this service with both dial-up pools and private lines.• Each port represents one dial-up user. 