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AOL Not Alone In Subscriber Decline
E-Rock-23 writes "Our registration-hungry friends at the New York Times are running this article with a few more details on the AOL Subscriber Decline, covered in a recent /. post. And it looks like they aren't alone, as Earthlink and MSN are experiencing similar troubles. The article cites a major reason being that users "are buying broadband services offered by cable and telephone companies." Looks like broadband is finally gaining some significant ground with home users..."
Don't leave @HOME out; I bet they're facing a subscriber decline over the past year as well!
It could be the internet is just losing ground in general. and that's a Bad Thing.
on an unrelated note, i just built a computer in an old cardboard fruit box. wee!
Yeah, broadband is a nice upgrade. But I bet more people disconnected due to money than the need for speed.
Method of processing duck feet
login: somebaudysentme
passwd: somebaudysentme
Trolling using another account since 2005.
....the big 3 ISPs have seen the writing on the wall for a LONG time, yet they continued to expand their POTS infrastructure...ESPECIALLY earthlink. They better figure it out really freaking quick that when users find out that they can work just a little harder to find the same content through a non-branded ISP, they are going to drop their asses in droves. Looks like they already are. AOL has the potential infrastructure through Time Warner Cable...Earthlink has been able to finesse some cable sharing deals, but MSN going the DSL only branding route is going to lose if they don't sign some cable sharing deals.
I don't get it, are they surprised? AOL costs 25$ a month. In my area you can get get DSL for 38$ so I don't think it should come as a surprise that people would go for a connection ten times as fast that didn't require the worst designed software on earth for an extra 13$. AOL has been robbing people for the past 5 years, they kept their prices jacked up because they could and had a corner on the market.But I doubt AOL is really noticing too much of a hurt, because I have noticed idiots who get broadband and still pay for AOL as well. People are dumb and that will keep AOL and MSN in business for a long time.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Although I was with a local ISP, the cost of the 2nd phone line was $25.00 and my ISP was $15.00. Broadband through the cable company was $40.00 so it was a complete wash for a huge increase over 56k, why would I want to stay on dialup? They can thank all the baby bells for not wanting to go the "last mile" to give people a choice of providers.
More cable users = less bw for you if you use cable.
:-)
:-)
More cable users = irrelevant for you if you use ADSL.
More ADSL users = irrelevant for you if you use cable.
More ADSL users = irrelevant for you if you use ADSL.
Hence, choose ADSL
Remember: more broadband users = bigger market for pr0n = more pr0n 4 u!!!
Daniel
Carpe Diem
As a former AOL employee, I still have an AOL account even though I find the service has ticked me off more than a few times but my wife can't really change her email address at this tmie. So we are like so many who just are waiting for the right time.
You can't stop the future, you can only simulate it by stopping progress
sign up for AOL. He can't afford broadband (yet). He just started using the internet. As soon as he finds the pr0n movies for download, I'm sure he'll drop his smoking habbit so he can get broadband and pick up a new (better?) habbit.
With streaming content becoming more available and higher quality, the days of dial-up are numbered. I'm suprised apartment buildings don't pool together and get a T1 into the buildling and provide internet to all apartments.
--------
Free your mind.
Everyone knows that broadband connections are what everyone is switching to... Soon, even that will be slow...
Personally, most peopel I know that ave AOL have it becuase they don't know any better. Even they don't like it...
Besides, who likes the 'gateways' anyway?
In soviet russia, AOL subscribes j00!
Everytime a NYT story is posted on /., new registrations there go through the roof!
It's hard to pass up broadband offered by cable\telefone companies. I can get my cable\fone\internet through one provider, it's really convenient.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
Thats why I bought a domain. My email address is permanent regardless of my provider. Changing emails is a real pain. ISPs rely on that - so they give great introductory offers, but raise the rates once they have you sucked in. With my own domain, I can changes ISPs painlessly.
In the UK, most people who have broadband service receive it either through as ISP, who in turn use either BT (DSL) or one of the two cable operators, NTL and Telewest (Cable Modem/STB). A lot, like me, probable go direct through the service provider (in my case, NTL).
AOL UK has recently started offering broadband services, through BT, but I've yet to see any figures on how much success they've had with it. MSN UK haven't made any moves on that front yet.
-MT.
However, received wisdom suggests that going through AOL increases latency so much that gamers wouldn't want AOL even if it was BB. There's more to life than raw bandwidth.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
I was one of EarthLink's earlier subscribers, and appreciated its services, which were quite reliable.
My business needs required something faster than dial-up, so when EarthLink offered DSL, I applied. At the time, however, DSL wasn't available for my part of the city (a medium-large midwestern one--think race cars), so Time Warner Cable's RoadRunner service was my only option.
Today, as a result of court agreements and such, EarthLink and AOL can provide their services through cable and DSL options, but the carriers (the cable and phone companies that own these lines) don't advertise the options much, from what I see.
I use Comcast High-Speed service today, which works OK, but they have tech support that's about as bright as a bag of coal.
I agree that the Internet was a fascination for some, and now a relatively expensive one to those who don't use it much. So, many of the users who've signed off are probably the "sightseers."
High-speed access is still a bit too expensive for most, despite the faster speeds. Paying twice to 2.5 times as much isn't a strong marketing point.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
MSN's service (at least in my area) is pretty fast and I never get busy signals. I also leave the connection on 24/7 and experience very few disconnections.
The MSN software stinks though. MSN Explorer is a waste.
AOL on the other hand....
Next time do a search on news.google.com to find a registration free version of the story.
7 OU FAV00.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/tech/D
-1, Stating The Bleeding Obvious!
-MT.
Yes. And so does Earthlink. We use them so our traveling salesmen can have cheap local dial-up access wherever they go. They're billing, customer service, and support are all so awful we've given up the luxury of laptops w/dial-up for the most part and just use blackberry's. Calling Earthlink for any reason is hysterical. In most cases we really could dial the psychic hotline and get better results.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The closed nature of their networks mean that independent ISP's (even the monster Earthlink) will no longer be able to compete with phone companies. Here in CT, the nearest competitor to SBC DSL has to charge at least $20 more than the service from the phone company. They rent the DSL services from the telco, making it impossible for them to compete. The days of infinite ISP choices are sadly over.
www.lonseidman.com
I think the broadband push is one determining factor in changing from the powerhouse ISP's, but I also think users are *growing up* from AOL/MSN to using only their preferred browser. I consider AOL/MSN users to be novice and prefer to use these ISP's because of ease and simplicity. Now these users are gaining knowledge of the "internet" and have the ability to *surf* themselves without AOL/MSN pushing content to them directly.
string.Empty();
isn't what is used to be.
.swf files via E-Mail to 20 different friends and the like.
Here in Germany you can get a 128kBit up / 768 kBit down async line. The best a normal household can aford is 192 kBit up / 1536 kBit down async.
The problem is that as bandwidth goes up, quality of the net goes down.
I heard people saying: "Why should I not place these 2MB images on my website? It's downloaded with my DSL line in seconds."
And don't even try to tell these people what a thumbnail is.
It's just one example but you can find more of these. People sending 15 MB
SQL Slammer won't have had the effect of broadband coming to every home.
See my blog for my free opinions.
http://archive.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/technology/0 3ONLI.html
Excellent point on the mobile work force. I remember traveling with my laptop and struggling with horrible hotel-internet. If there is one good thing about national dial-up like MSN and AOL it is that I can go anywhere in the country and get access instantly.
If I were more of a mobile warrior, I would definitely have AOL or MSN.
--------
Free your mind.
What about other reasons?
AOL customer support is ranked as very bad; this surely gets rid of users. On top of that, their e-mail system is programmed to actually destroy messages in the inbox (something even the free e-mail services do not have), and it totally lacks spam filtering.
MSN is associated with Microsoft, and we all know its baggage.
Earthlink is associated with Elron Hubbard's cult, which was an early force in Internet censorship.
Ok, so with the number of cable broadband subscribers going up, it makes sense that the cable companies can finally (hopefully) start collecting on those economies of scale. So when will we start to see the price stabilize? Or are we stuck with endless rate increases a la cable television?
I've already given up on DSL from the phone company (Good luck getting competitition-inducing rates from those guys.)
IMHO community run broadband (see this link) and other means like this are the only hope we have of keeping prices reasonable.
Erp, did I just come out in favor of regulating Internet pricing?!?
With the coming of wireless internet, it even becomes simpler to share the net (you don't even have to dig or drill a line in the ground or wall for your ethernet cable). I think this also has some impact on the decline of dial-up subscriptions.
The question I see is, if the RIAA's intimidation/anti-consumer tactics (or DRM-etc) gain significant ground, and downloading mp3s, movies, etc becomes too difficult, will home users really need a 300kbps connection? (I'd never go back to a 56k modem that never connected faster than 22k, but that's just me).
Actually, now that I wrote that, I think they do--who knows what else will take the place of them though. A real-time slashdot feed perhaps?
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Perhaps... Though I just saw a commercial for "AOL Broadband"--Which I assume is DSL--which will help them combat this loss in membership.
I work for a small, privatly owned ISP. I do see alot of our older dial up customers going over the broadband, but more and more, they are cancelling because of lack of money. Even at around $20 a month or so many people see internet access as something extra not something they need.
Maybe this tred will turn around but I doubt it. Even if these customers do get back on firm ground, I see them going with broadband via cable, phone company, or even the electric company long before comming back to a dial up.
Remember that AOL owns Roadrunner and they are already offering an AOL broadband service: basically TW Roadrunner with all the AOL crap thrown on top.
Of course any moderately intelligent person (10% or so of the total population perhaps?) doesn't install any of that shit...
What is music when you despise all sound?
Don't worry, the ISPs still have a core group of subscribers. Namely, the large percentage (I forgot the exact number, but it's big) of the country who don't have access to broadband, like myself. I'll be an Earthlink subscriber for a long time to come because I live about a mile away from people with cable modems, and I called Adelphia the other day and they said I wouldn't have cable internet until a year from now. This is exactly what they said last year. :(
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
OOL still hasn't fixed the TFTP issue
:-)
;-)
i've uncapped meself down/up
pick and poke on their networks.. you'll find many surprises
Earthlink also uses spam to advertise (winbigusa.com/peak-10.com/webersinternet.com spam gang), which cost them any consideration from me when DirecTV Internet folded.
Why pay $20/month for service and $15/month for another phone line when you can get DSL/Cable for a few bucks more?
At $23.50/month, AOL has less customers than at $20.00/month.
...
Price goes up, quantity goes down-- that's a demand curve.
nb: There's other reasons for the decline too, AOL and MSN blow as ISPS and don't support linux and censor tons of content in the newsgroups, and break your Network Connections and
A few weeks ago I got a mailing from Earthlink saying I could save $5 by switching my cable internet service from MediAT&Comcast to Earthlink. Aside from the $5 difference, I could not find a reason to switch, and the $5 is tiny compared to what I'm paying for the service in the first place.
If Earthlink had a different TOS (I could have servers, for example), then I might consider switching. If the only change is I have to install Earthlink software instead of ATTBI software, then it's rather pointless, isn't it?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
why would it be DSL when they own Time-Warner (i.e. Roadrunner)?
Please can someone post the article. NYTimes has been blocked in China.
Why would you assume that it's DSL? AOL-TimeWarner owns a rather sizable cable internet business. More likely, they'll use whatever wiring they have to in order to get your account-- hence a generic term like "broadband". Or maybe they're using the word "broadband" to cover the word "cable" since so many people (still) seem to think cable internet is somehow insecure or worse than DSL.
I do not have a signature
More broadband users between point A and B = less bandwidth available for people at point A from B.
The cable issue is really only relevant to your local cable area (neighborhood/town/city) while more broadband users overall means less bandwidth for all.
"The question I see is, if the RIAA's intimidation/anti-consumer tactics (or DRM-etc) gain significant ground, and downloading mp3s, movies, etc becomes too difficult, will home users really need a 300kbps connection?
Yes, certainly. There are plenty of uncontroversial MP3's and large files to download, not to mention streaming audio and streaming news feeds (CNN.com, etc), "internet radio", C-Span, and other things which really don't work on dial-up.
Moving beyond that, there is video e-mail, when someone films Junior's 2nd birthday party with the digital camera and e-mails a clip to Aunt Sue; again made easy with broadband but not worth it with dial-up modem.
The average Joe User is starting to realize that they can dump AOL and their advertisements-up-the-wazoo and pick up Juno or Netzero with their advertisement-somewhat-less-up-the-wazoo for less than half ($10 vs. $24). That's huge...
And then there is broadband. Drop your wimpy AOL or other dialup as well as the dedicated line for a broadband connection. Places like WideOpenWest are offering cable TV and internet for less than what you'd pay for a broadband connection via a Big Provider. This is a no brainer...
Unrelated note - I spent TWO HOURS on the phone with Comcrap. All that I wanted to do is tell them that I've moved to a new address and hooked up my cable modem there (it worked fine.. just down the road from where I used to live). I kept being routed from department to department but they never did update the address. Since the service works and I have auto bill pay, I decided that I wouldn't waste my time anymore. As soon as WideOpenWest offers service in my area (Spring), you can bet your sweet bippie that I'll be dumping Comcast.
And then you'll see an article about how Comcast is losing customers. It isn't because people are leaving the internet, it is because better providers are finally moving in and offering real customer service and value to people who could not get it previously.
Speed dial 1 - Mom
Speed dial 2 - Granny
- Toby
Since I work alot with the public and their computers let me tell you what I think the biggest reason for the decline is.
90% of the houses I go to are for people who are upgrading and now want two computers. (Their old one + their new one) AOL requires a $20 subscription fee + more money for multiple screens and though you can have broadband and still use AOL they still charge an aol usage fee.... *yawn*
So they upgrade to broadband because that 56k stuff has to go and because it can easily service two computers, they buy a router, they leave AOL but download the messenger to stay in touch with their buddies. They migrate to using Outlook Express (cringe) But they also have norton so I guess thats ok... sort of.
Then they also cancel AOL + Second Phone Line and broadband is about the same price. Some even cancel their phone and do VoIP. (Its rare but there are some really good offers out there that even offer wireless phonejacks that you can sticky to your wall or plug into an outlet...)
In 1965 Vietnam seemed like just another foreign war, but it wasn't
s truction
It was different in many ways, as so were those that did the fighting
In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26...
In Vietnam he was 19
In inininininin Vietnam he was 19
(TV announcer's voice)
The shooting and fighting of the past two weeks continued today
25 miles west of Saigon
I really wasn't sure what was going on (Vet's Voice)
Nininini Nineteen, 19, Ni-nineteen 19
19,19,19,19
In Vietnam the combat soldier typically served a twelve month tour of duty but was exposed to hostile fire almost everyday
Ninininininininininin 19 nininininninin 19
Hundreds of Thousands of men who saw heavy combat in Vietnam were arrested since discharge
Their arrest rate is almost twice that of non-veterans of the same age
There are no accurate figures of how many of these men have been incarcerated
But, a Veterans Administration study concludes that the greater of Vets exposure to combat could more likely affect his chances of being arrested or convicted
This is one legacy of the Vietnam War
(Singing Girls)
All those who remember the war
They won't forget what they've seen...
Destruction of men in their prime
whose average was 19
Dedededededede-Destruction
Dedededededede-De
War, War
Dededede-Destruction, wa-wa-War, wa-War, War
Dedededededede-Destruction
War, War
After World War II the Men came home together on troop ships, but the Vietnam
Vet often arrived home within 48 hours of jungle combat
Perhaps the most dramatic difference between World War II and VietNam was coming home...
None of them received a hero's welcome
None of them received a heroes welcome, none of them, none of them
Nenene Nenene None of them, none of them, none of them (etc...)
None of them received a hero's welcome
None of them received a hero's welcome
According to a Veteran's Administration study half of the Vietnam combat veterans suffered from what Psychiatrists call
Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder
Many vets complain of alienation, rage, or guilt -- some succumb to suicidal thoughts
Eight to Ten years after coming home almost eight-hundred-thousand men are still fighting the Vietnam War
(Singing Girls)
Dedededededede-Destruction
Nininininininininin Nineteen, 19, Ni-nineteen 19
19,19,19,19
Nininininininininin Nineteen, 19, Ni-nineteen 19
19,19,19,19
(Soldiers Voice)
When we came back it was different.. Everybody wants to know "How'd it
happenned to those guys over there
There's gotta be something wrong somewhere
We did what we had to do
There's gotta be something wrong somewhere
People wanted us to be ashamed of what it made us
Dad had no idea what he went to fight and he is now
All we want to do is come home
All we want to do is come home
What did we do it for
All we want to do is come home
Was it worth it?
I think another significant issue is that the Internet as a mainstream fad is fading. People are figuring out that while there's a lot of stuff online, Sturgeon's Law applies (90% of it is crap), and it can be a lot of work to find the remaining 10% that's worthwhile. A lot of people are just giving up when they discover that, plus they have trouble getting digital photos out of their camera and into e-mail so they can send them to grandma in Boise.
While dial-up is a relatively cheap product to deploy and support, the broadband products are expensive and more complicated. The additional cost means that ISPs can't afford to move into all of the same areas that they could with narrowband. So in some areas, especially more rural parts of the country, customers are having to leave the three major ISPs to go with their local telcos to get a faster connection. Most ISPs don't own their own DSL equipment anyway. They go through the local telcos themselves or through companies like Covad. To do this ISPs have to establish contracts with these companies to resell their services. This cuts into their revenue as the ILEC's get a piece of the pie as well.
Another problem is that broadband is not as profitable as dial-up currently. Whereas dial-ups bring in $8-$10 a month on average, broadband products bring in the neighborhood of $5/month. Sometimes the the ISPs don't see any profit for more than a year (if ever) as they offer deals for free modems and discounted service fees.
As an employee and one of the 3 largest ISPs I can tell you that IMO the cost of broadband isn't going to be going up anytime soon as long as the CLEC's continue to convince the government that competition is a good thing. But you can expect to have your ISP try to sell you on additional services like static IP, VoIP, priority tech support, Long Distance telephone service, and offer discounts for longer contract terms.
I think this is a common feeling in the tech community without that much basis in fact. I used AOL for years and found it no worse than any other dialup service I had ever used - it was more expensive, but I could always get connected when I wanted to and never got dropped. (YMMV, of course)
IMHO, AOL gets a bad rap from the tech community because of the obscene amounts of script kiddies who run off their parents' accounts on it. Because it's so huge, it's also automatically evil to groups of techies who use Linux just because it's not Windows.
They've got 3 call centers now instead of 7.
Basically, you'll NEVER get through to them now.
20% of their workforce has just been laid off.
Atlanta-based access provider EarthLink (Quote, Company Info) on Tuesday announced it would shut down call center operations in four U.S. cities and lay off about 1,300 employees as part of a cost-cutting move.
With its dial-up subscriber base dwindling, the nation's third largest ISP said it would close its entire call center operations in Dallas, Texas; Sacramento, Calif.; and Seattle, Wash. Additionally, a tech support and customer service center in Pasadena, Calif. would also be shuttered in the latest belt-tightening move.
"We estimate the streamlining of our call centers will reduce annualized operating expenses by more than $20 million," the company said in a brief statement.
I think it is not just people using broadband. I think it also has to deal with the fact that people no longer need crutches online. AOL and MSN are really geared towards people who don't know too much about the Internet. When you get used to doing stuff on your own, those extras MSN and AOL provide become more of a nuiscance than anything else. At that point people usually go for a more basic ISP that gives you access to the Internet at a cheaper price with more reliable (as in easier to connect) service. There is a reason why people make fun of AOL users after all...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Not to put up a useless "me too" post, but....me too. I've had my domain for a good 5 years and it allows me to switch ISPs all I want. Bandwidth is nothing more than a commodity at this point.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
hhhmmm...let's...AOL and MSN both have propritary winblowz spyw^H^H^H^H clients. they loose many of their customers after the trial period as many don't want to pay for their advertisements, poor customer service, etc.
now let's look at my local cable provider. their network has been fairly reliable thus far. no software to install (though they do try and convince you to run their install program that puts their logo in the corner of IE and sets up your mail settings). my only REAL complaints with my cable service is that they block port 80, (because they don't want me to run a "server"...i guess they think a web server is the only type???) and i can only transmit at 128k while downstream is supposed to max out at 1.5M.
of course, i can live with those small irritations when i'm downloading the latest kernel source, mozilla, p0rn, and openoffice in a matter of min. instead of hours.
-frozen
I'm not always the brightest pixel in the stream
It's not off-topic, its the "Apple-Style" switch commercials... AOL to broadband, get it now??
-not anonymous coward, too lazy to register, plus im at school g4m8i7 (g4m8i7@hotmail.com)
I don't know how well cable (comcast) is going to develop - for two months they failed to show up to even install the line - so I went with Verizon DSL and the service has been fast enough for my tastes (used to a university ethernet!)...anyway I just finished doing some private home wireless networking jobs for small business people buying dsl for their homes and wiring all their XP machines together. I get the feeling the at very least DSL (cheaper and NOT the cable company) is about to score BIG with the cheap wireless products you can pick up anywhere nowadays.
~frank
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
Without telling us what state or even country your company services...is it a rural area, dense population...what language is spoken?
I ask because maybe it is due to the economics of the local area...
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
What all this shows is that we want a fast reliable connection to the net, and name brands don't mean squat. I am one of the people who gets DSL from my local phone company. Dialup sucks. You can't even reliably send a picture of the new baby to grandma and grandpa with it. Since it is not worth paying for, those who still use it use Netzero and Juno. Buh Bye AOL, MSN, Earthlink, et al. You are so twentieth century.
How ya like dat?
Picture a production executive: "Why should I not agree to do this terrible movie? People will see it anyway." A theater owner: "Why should I not perpetrate the single largest price gouge that the average American sees over some kernels of 'popped corn' and sugar water? People will pay." A person in charge of showing the movie: "Let's put this movie in 8 screens, so everybody sees it all at once, and everybody forgets about it in 3 weeks. Then, let's do it again!"
The problem is that the problem feeds itself. So does this one. You know what the solution is? 'tis like a marketer's dream... More solutions! Bigger broadband, better broadband, different broadband!® And some will buy it, and some won't, and some will still be on dialup, but it will be different, and that's good, right?
You're right. But once you let the average person into something, they usually ruin it.
Yeah, sure, thing are down a long way from the dotcom peak, but that was bogus anyway.
I disagree strongly that people are simply disconnecting from the Internet altogether or are jumping to cheap $10 a month providers for these two reasons:
1. The numbers don't support that assertion.
2. Internet access is not a mere luxury anymore.
--Richard
What this shows is simply that the AOL model of bundling connectivity with content is failing.
We all knew it would... it makes some sense to use content to sell connectivity. But that means you have to either break even or lose money on the content, otherwise your connectivity will be overpriced.
Another approach is the revers... using connectivity to sell content. Again, same situation... you couldn't make money on connectivity.
AOL's early success convinced a lot of people that there was some natural synergy between the two. There's isn't. AOL's business model (and the Time merger) are based on the theory that by combining the two, they could make more money on content AND more money on connectivity. Can't work.
Even more amazing is the number of companies that saw the growth of AOL and concluded that bundling the way to go. Excite@home was one of the most spectacular failures that was fueled by this erroneous analysis.
I thought one of the principal arguments used to support the DMCA was to speed the acceptance of broadband. As I recall, the rationale was that the additional protection for digital media distributions would spur the offering of digital content. In turn, this would increase the incentives for consumer adoption of broadband.
With very little in the way of conventional entertainment available (the RIAA has killed most and movies don't exist), an increase in broadband acceptance appears independent of the incentive. All that really happened was the consumer got shafted.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
Depends on which part of the world you live in ;-)
If you wanna see a subscriber boom, catch the next plane to Bombay or Shanghai!
-@loke
.... Is there supposed to be a signature here ???
Actually, its a falsehood that cable is shared and DSL isnt. True as long as you are getting all your p0rn from the CO, but after that you are on shared bandwidth.
Hence, choose ADSL :-)
:-)
I always love the cats who say this shit. Pray tell how going from 256Kbps upstream minimum with cable, frequently more like 512Kbps, to my current 128Kbps upstream is preferable?
Remember: more broadband users = bigger market for pr0n = more pr0n 4 u!!!
Do you realize how much time it takes to upload a 150 MB pr0n movie to someone at ISDN speeds???? It is a horrendous amount of time. SBC also throttles your download speed to 384Kbps when you are using the full 128Kbps they allocate you for uploading.
In 1989, 2400bps was king. Then by 1991, 9600 was affordable. 1993, 14.4 was king. 1994, v.34 had arrived. Thats 28.8Kbps. Now, TEN FUCKING YEARS LATER, I only get 128Kbps upstream. Four times the speed of a decade ago.
I am not impressed.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
For example my mother was paying $20/month for a second phone line and $20/month for her ISP. We got rid of her second phone line and the ISP for a cable modem that costs the same, $40/month.
Another phenomenon that phone companies and ISP's have to worrying about is people not having a landline at all. Most people I'm friends with (age 22-28) do not have a landline, but instead use a cell phone exclusively. There are lots of benefits of using a cell phone only. For people with roommates, you don't have to worry about splitting up the phone bill or dealing with calling cards. On a cost basis, I would rather pay $75 for a really good cell plan than a landline with no long distance for $40 and a cheap cell plan for $35.
Most of the people who I know who use a cell phone exclusively are also cable modem subscribers. Those who are not, just use work for personal Internet access. Of the people I do know with landlines, most of them have to have them in order to dial-in to their company's network because of the absence of a Internet VPN.
I've been landline free for three years now, with no regrets.
The question I see is, if the RIAA's intimidation/anti-consumer tactics (or DRM-etc) gain significant ground, and downloading mp3s, movies, etc becomes too difficult, will home users really need a 300kbps connection?
One word:
porn
Our anonimous source from one ISP company told us that his company now doesn't know what to do with many of those old modems. Perhaps they are going to lay off all modem support operators. We've asked why not switch to higher speed and the answer was: "we cannot do it, we don't know if it will be too fast for us and we afraid of anything new anyway".
Less is more !
Fastmail.fm has a nice tagged email feature using subdomains - not only can you get mail at username+tag@fastmail.fm, but tag@username.fastmail.fm translates to the same thing, so you can give everybody an email address like that and trash any addresses used by spammers. Like many of the newer web mail systems, they also let you retrieve mail from them with IMAP, and can fetch mail from other systems with POP or IMAP.
I haven't actually gotten rid of the Netcom->Mindspring->Earthlink dialup account I used back when I got the pobox.com account, though with broadband and work-provided dialup for my laptop it's about time to.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
or anyone else is a BAD THING. As your local cable/dsl provider gets a strangle hold on the market you can be sure the prices will GO UP not down. We are seeing it with cable TV already, in area's that ATT is a monopoly are already seeing a rise in cost while they CUT services...De-regulation is everybodies friend...NOT. SBC is already larger than it was before the government called it a monopoly and broke the bells apart...Thanks Bush
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
For many people, the big value about AOL is not just the dialup access, it's the content - Instant Messaging with their friends, chat rooms, cheerful People-Magazine-style news, etc. MSN may have a little bit of this, and as far as I know Earthlink has none of it that isn't openly web-accessible. A while back AOL started offering a content-only account for about $10 for people who had their own ISP connections, which meant that if you had broadband or a real dialup provider, you could still get your AOL and keep your AOL email. Not sure if that's still the case or not.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yeah, if you subscribe to AOL, Earthlink, or MSN you can get DSL or cable for only a little more, and you might even be saving money if you have a second line for internet use.
That's not why any of the people I know are leaving those ISPs, though. In my experience it's a combination of high prices, questionable billing practices, and poor customer support. Earthlink seems to be especially bad. I knew a lot of people that signed up with jps when it was $99 per year. jps got bought by MediaOne(?IIRC) and the rates went up to something like $12 a month. There was a little grumbling, but nobody did anything about it. Phone support was much less useful, and all the useful online support information became much more difficult to find. Then they got bought up by Earthlink, rates shot up to the $20 range, and everybody started getting bills for months they had already paid for, and getting cut off for not paying. Phone support got downright hostile, and useful online information completely disappeared.
A lot of people paid what they had to and jumped ship as soon as they found a $10 per month ISP. A few lucky ones like my dad, who saves paperwork like it's a freakin religion, where able to browbeat Earthlink with threats of lawsuit (Earthlink graciously gave him "for free" 6 months of service he had already paid for).
Gee, I can't imagine why anyone would choose to go with a different ISP...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Cable companies send their techs driving around in vans with sniffer gear. Don't put on your tin foil hat just yet. It isn't as obnoxious as it sounds. Each cable connection in your house leaks a predictable amount of RF. Your cable modem would be one such connection. As you connect more things to your cable, that slight leakage increases. What the tech in the van sees is little more than a RF signal strength indication. What they do would work just fine with nothing more than an analog gauge and a little experience.
They don't just look for people outright stealing cable either. They're also interested in people using more hookups than what they paid for. More hookups - more deflection of that RF gauge.
Since all they are doing is monitoring the amount of signal leaking out their own network, they are legally in the clear on this. The fact that they didn't bother with a trap doesn't mean you're entitled to the video portion of the signal. If you hook up a TV, they'll find it if they're inclined to look for it.
Oh, they often use Time Domain Reflectometers to find faults in their cable. Those you who ride the network cabling range know about these too. A TDR will give highly precise readings on just what is sitting on a line. Those will work even if some smartass turns his house into a faraday cage.
I will happily forward to you all of my AOL mail and my wife's hotmail. I have given up on them both, what you will get is spam spam spam and more spam.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I run a small business and use email to notify my clients. I send out 50, or so, emails once a week.
Unfortunately, 1/2 my customers use AOL and AOL has a really nasty habit of silently dumping some, but not all, email from other ISP's. So, a couple of days after I had sent out the weekly notice, I would get calls from some of my clients saying they hadn't gotten their weekly status report. Dicking around with Sbcglobal over several months wasn't getting me anywhere so I finally bit the bullet and bought an AOL account just so I could reliably reach my clients.
I'm not happy about it but I don't have the time to sort out AOL-Sbcglobal email incompatibilities. What really is annoying is that it was only my AOL clients that had problems getting their email reliably.
If I was smart, (that's a big if ), I'd stop using email and have my customers go to my website to get their weekly status reports. Then when they complain about how slow AOL's browser is I can steer them to a non-AOL solution and earn a referral fee. The fee isn't worth much but getting more people off of AOL certainly is attractive after all the grief I've had from AOL.
Geesh, I use to work for an ISP out west and had to deal with a baby bell.. People complain about the price of dsl being 2x more than dial up, so what, with up to 50x faster speeds that's a good deal if you ask me personally. You really have no idea how much money needs to be put into it every month just to turn a profit from the ISP's standpoint, especially when they are a reseller of DSL through a CLEC/ILEC. First off reselling DSL makes you target numero uno on the phone companies list, you're digging into their profit. If they charge $39 for a circuit and $1 for their internet that's $40.. Well the ISP has to pay for that $39 too or the customer does going through the ISP depending on how billing is structured. An ISP can not afford taking a hit by charging $1 to a customer for access, it's just not feasible. The phone company can charge so little for dsl because even in not making a profit on it they have you locked in as a subscriber plus make it up in high phone service charges. In the DSL world 200 subscibers on a T1 is just not feasible as it will saturate it, but a T3 or DS3 will do the trick, that's alot of money a month for that pipe, at a $1 a customer = $200/mo in charges. Show me where you can even find a T1 for $200/mo off of a reputible company. This is why there are fly by night ISP's they simply CAN NOT compete with that pricing so they have to charge more. Also there is alot more involved with the biggers companies screwing reseller isp's that the normal consumer has no clue about and these things do happen as I have been witness and victim to them first hand. Just a thought for everyone
Who here remembers Mindspring before they supposedly bought out Earthlink ? Still amazes me, the deal was considered a buy out seeing as the crap of Earthlink has managed to take that whole deal over. I was a mindspring subscriber back when they were only a local ISP in Atlanta. They had incredible tech support and would not sign up anyone if they were at their capacity. Busy signals were unheard of. You recieved notifications of possible outages, appologies and explinations for unexpected outages. These are things they carried with them when they expanded to provide national access. At the time they did the impossible. Took the combination of knowldegable tech savy support, with stellar access thought only to exist at the small scale local ISP level and went national with an incredible jump in subscriber base. And they pulled it off.... at least for a while.
Then they did something stupid, they 'bought' Earthlink. They then promptly changed their name to Earthlink since supposedly Earthlink had better west coast brand recognition. It may have been more widely known, but then it was widely known as a crap provider which cared far more about the bottom line than its customers or providing a good service. Unfortunately this attitude seems to have infected Mindspring. It has realy affected the broadband service offerings largely rolled out since the 'buyout'.
All in all I hear that the current service overall for Mindspring/Earthlink is still above average compared to most peoples experience with services like AOL or MSN and that frightens me. Perosnally I no longer recognize any elements of Mindspring in the interaction I have with my provider Earthlink. In fact the only thing remaining is I still have @mindspring.com on my e-mail adressess. Unfortunately it often seems that is all that remains of a once great company with a great mindset. My recent experiences with Earthlink Broadband services have completly shattered my once unassailable loyalty to the company it once was. I am curretly waiting until my yearlong contract agreement expires to shift broadband providers to comcast or a local service here in Huntsville where I now live.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
AOL is seeking advice from the RIAA in an apparent attempt to stem the losses believed to be due to rapant downloading off the net.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You can get an address at spamcop.net, read it from anywhere, AND get spam filtering, for about $20/year.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Through normal churn, a provider loses some of their subscribers. If new subscribers can not be signed up at a greater rate, the overall numbers go down. In my area, SBC/Pacbell makes it hideously difficult to sign up for DSL with anybody but them, and cable is not available. I tried to get DSL first with DirecTV DSL, then Earthlink. Earthlink did great in troubleshooting the problem. SBC kept telling them that my line that's 23k ft from the CO qualifies for service. No biggie, put the order in to go on a remote terminal. Earthlink tried this numerous times and the order was consistently rejected. When we finally gave up, I broke down and called SBC the same day. Magically I was hooked up to a remote terminal and had DSL in only three days! Now tell me there isn't something funny going on there. I wanted to sign up with somebody other than my telco, but was forced into doing so if I wanted broadband. It's no wonder everyone else is losing subscribers.
EarthLink does have issues with turning some profits but losses are very low, and they added 52 million dollars in cash to the bank, bringing their cash position to over a half a billion dollars.
Additionally, EarthLink is aggressively pursuing in 2003 the "value" $10 dial-up business by offering services thru its recently acquired PeoplePC subsidiary, which is guna put a lot of lethal pressue on United Online which offers spam-ridden, windows-only service thru custom dial-up/networking software which basically takes over your tcp/ip stack.
EarthLink is by far the most diversified ISP in the United States. AOL and MSN are doomed dinosaurs stuck in the dial-up age, scrambling for their lives trying to land broadband deals with telcos a whole TWO YEARS behind their fiercest competitors.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
They're not moving because of broadband, they're moving because of the crappy service!!!
Be nice if they had stats on local ISP's aggregate numbers...
As I interact with friends, family and just people in general. The subject of internet tends to come up. You have the praises and you here the griefs. One thing that I've heard more then once, about AOL and MSN. Is that, when it comes time to cancel the free trial that was so generously offered? The actually cancellation does not occur. They are billed that outrageous monthly fee and it showing up a month or so later on the credit card bill. So what the point is that they give you a conformation number and most of us are not likely to neither write it down nor remember it. So we are screwed. So why am I mentioning this? Well I also have friends who work for AOL and they always have stories to tell how the account system is awful in which it does not cancel the free trail account. It just makes you think rather this in intentional or system failure.
+++ David Watts 5495 0.0 0.5 1888 884
Maybe the problem with AOL is they arent distributing enough free signup disks? I mean I know I only get 2-3 a month now, instead of the 2-3 a week..
-Jason
The number of people who need their hands held to surf the web is in the decline.
Plus kids are already "comfy" on the web so we'll see even further declines.
Sadly, for parents too busy* to monitor their children's internet access AOL et al wasn't a bad product.
* Just becuase someone doesn't monitor their children's internet access doesn't automatically relegate them into the BAD PARENT bin, but it is a really good indicator *
This
By and large, the broadband solutions from the cable and the phone companies are the ONLY OPTION for people. And if one desires true high-speed DSL and is lucky enough to live in a precise location where it is available, he can still expect to pay over $150/month for it (DSL service from USWest, $66.00, ISP Services with a static netblock and dns, $100.00).
The ISPs want to provide broadband solutions but they are not allowed to compete in many markets.
"More ADSL users = irrelevant for you if you use ADSL."
Except that that DSLAM aggregates all those customers onto a single OC-x circuit. More ADSL users = less bw for you if you use ADSL. Both ADSL and cable modem have aggregation points that are potential bottlenecks - whether that actually impacts customers is a business choice the operator makes, not a technical limitation.
Most people who have the option wait to do some of their surfing at work on a fast connection. For people who don't have that option, they must pay for a faster connection or accept that some web content and services will be barely usable or unavailable.
" Claiming that someone entirely cuts themselves off seems extremist as the net represents one of the primary communications mediums today: How does one find and then communicate with prospective jobs without an internet connection?"
How did people do things like this, and others, before there was an internet? There was a before you know? And even if one wishes to stick with the "Internet is necessary" mantra. The question still remains. What did people do before broadband? Those haven't disappeared you know. IMHO I think too many people are going to be seeing this situation through the geek perspective. To a geek anything that tech brings is important, and necessary.
To the rest of the population, which will have different perspective, and priorities, tech isn't the end all and be all of existance.
Actually you gave me an idea. Now I think mainstream movies, music, and books are out, for the same reasons that have been discussed on Slashdot before. However that missing "Marketing" that's been talked about when it comes to the small guy could be provided by AOL. Just like they did for Netscape/Mozilla. What a great boost, and it would be a win for everyone, EXCEPT for the aformentioned mainstream.
Granted that I'm not much of an economist, but perhaps part of the problem is that dialup service is really a money sink? I'm figuring this because last year sometime, Speakeasy had implemented their broadband bank dialup, where every dollar you pay into a dialup account becomes credit (up to $225, they're no fools) for a broadband connection.
This sig no verb.
Is that little k or big K?
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Like it's 1856 or something? We don't live in the past anymore.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
what is the curent slashdot reader login name and password for nytimes
In my apartment, my roommates and I all share a single DSL line split by a Ethernet router. I know many others that do the same thing. Being able to easily divide a DSL internet connection is another big advantage over dialup. If hadn't convinced my roommates to switch DSL, AOL or MSN could have 3 more customers.
Multiply this by 250,000 households and you could have another cause of the decline of there subscriber dialup base.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
Especially since a lot more people can get internet access at work. I suspect folks who canceled the home connection may be checking their Yahoo email during lunch. Also, their work connection is probably faster than the home dialup ever was.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
You can't stop the future, you can only simulate it by stopping progress
Great quote! Where did this come from, or did you make it up?
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I don't know what they are doing in other areas, but here in Arizona's Phoenix valley Cox Communications is pushing "digital" cable TV, "digital" telephone, and broadband all together at a package rate that makes sense to a lot of people, ($100 per month?)
There are problems with their service: line noise, security, and support, but in this post-dotcom-bubble era some people are making decisions based on price without considering the quality.
Here in AZ the only reliable residential DSL is through QWest which basically forces residential customers into a pseudo-MSN account. I suppose that those people count a MSN customers. They get MSN e-mail addresses and rely on MSN tech support.
I use a regional provider for my DSL.
They're not perfect by far, but they're small, I know some of the guys there, and they're actually profitable. I know there are fewer and fewer regional providers these days, which is all the more reason for me to keep using one.
I pay a little bit more for my DSL than I was paying for DirectTV DSL but I get very similar service and terms.
I have few complaints but even if there were major issues I would likely still use a small regional for no other reason than I refuse to support any of the evil three (AOL, MSN, Earthlink).
Also, the local cable provider (http://www.charter.net) really blows in my area. I hear about horrible lag, serious downtime, and other problems from everyone I know who uses them.
My choice to use a regional may seem silly, but I feel like my money is being well spent supporting a dying breed. There should be more companies like them.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Earthlink's idea of broadband is capping their DSL lines at 400kbits.
Seriously.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
IMHO AOL doth sucketh mightily. The idea of paying $23.95 a month to be indundated with ads and pop-ups is not at all appealing to me, nor is the concept of being essentially restricted to the AOL reservation. As for the decline in AOL's subscriber base, there could be some book-cooking going on. Are the folks who use their 1,500 free hours in one month and then quit considered to be subscribers? If so, there's an awful lot of churn, and it would be very difficult to determine the size of the real subscriber base. cheers, Milford Poltroon PS-- Yeah, I went to a Publik Skool (More Science High, of course) so I'm not too bright, but I do know that there are 168 hours in a week. So how does one use 1,500--or even 750--hours in a month?
if it was little k that would mean he could only transfer 3/2 kilo-bytes per second. 1.5 KB/s is far worse then dial-up.
Hmmm... Pie...
I currently work for MSN retention sales (ick, certainly not by choice) so I'm right on the firing lines. I would place moving to broadband as a distinct number three in reasons for cancellation. In my experience, the top reasons for cancellation are:
1) Cost - a lot of people can't afford $21.95 or whatever for Internet so they either quit all together or go to a lower cost dial up provider
2) Unwanted trial subscriptions (!) - a lot of Joesixpack users get free promotions with new PCs and don't realize it due to some very dodgy practices on the part of most retailers (*cough*Best Buy*cough*). About a year ago they started making a major push to bundle service with 6 month and 1 year trials, and we are now seeing a huge ramp in cancellations volume as these trial period expire. This kind of marketing ploy is biting the Tier 1 ISPs HARD now.
3) Broadband switch - particularly cable. It's quite clear now that cable is kicking all kinds of ass in the residential broadband market due to ease of installation and price. Whether this will continue to be the case with rate hikes and service caps slipping in remains to be seen.
4) Support issues - Tier 1 ISPs have large outsource call centers for most of their tech support/customer service. Communication with these outfits on emerging issues is TERRIBLE and the level 1 techs are mostly just following the scripted troubleshooting. Customer service wise, all the ISPs are pushing hard for low call times and refusal to give customers any kind of real monetary compensation for problems. Result, crappy service and customers fleeing for smaller providers
If you're keen on upstream just upgrade your ADSL. I have a friend whose ADSL uploads at 768kbit/s...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Here in Connecticut, SBC-SNET has 128 and 256. It costs an extra $30 a month to get 256K upstream. To go to 384, which is only available synchronously, its $150. So, if I really wanted half of what you are suggesting, I would have to go from 1500 down to 384. That sucks
I don't read or respond to AC posts
does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to
combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is
self-propagating.
-- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose"
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