No special connection between these two, they just both start with 'M'...
'Modem'
- - an electronic box which converts - 'MOdulates' - an outgoing information signal from computer language to telephone-cable language, and 'DEModulates' an incoming signal: which is where the name 'modem' comes from. You buy buy one for next-to-nothing in connection with a subscription for internet service, or independently for around $100.
- - in the context of computers, a free mixture of all or some of the elements which can be used together with a computer - text, images, animations, movies, sound, links between pages, neat transitions, full-screen view etc. The basic format of the web, HTML, is being developed all the time to include more and more functions, so that it becomes more and more like multimedia: but for the time being,ä they are kept separate since there are no transitions or whole-screen views. Multimedia-files are usually much large than normal web-files, and are stored either on the user's hard disc, or on a CD-ROM; but special solutions are being developed to, firstly compress the files, and secondly to load them bit by bit as they are needed.