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Microsoft Soft-Pedals Dialup
twitter writes "The NYT reports Bill Gates surrender of dial-up Internet access. 'We stayed in the access business for a while, and then we decided it wasn't for us.' $314 million in advertising yielded $300 million in losses last year." Microsoft's dialup service isn't disappearing, but the company is scaling it back and ending the expensive marketing campaign. This leaves exactly how many big players in the dialup market? Dialup is still the only option in many places.
If the majority of the country can only get on through mom-and-pop or local dialups, that will make it much harder for Big Content to place chokeholds on how everyone accesses and uses content. If 90% of the country used AOL, MSN, and AT&T, we'd all be screwed- you'd see complete blocks on all music downloads the moment that happened.
IAAL,BIANLY
I only ask because it offers some of the same performance and reliability features of dialup: Dropouts, poor speed, and an inability to use all necessary ports. . .
You are not the customer.
Just auto-generate your registration
Yeah, right.
One of my friends used MSN for 1 year after his 6 month trial period was over because the software that Microsoft put on his computer had exploits. He had free quality dial-up service without even paying a dime. If this one person is able to figure out this exploit, imagine how many other people are doing this. MSN loses money because it can't protect against illicit use.
This leaves exactly how many big players in the dialup market? Dialup is still the only option in many places.
They're not necessary. Just get a box and a good connection, a little bit of equipment, and some local phone numbers and you're set. The costs to set one up and manage one are rather cheap. It's a smart first business to run in a rural area.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Is the real reason AOL makes money is because the masses don't know better? That you can check your email, IM people, AND browse the web outside the safety of AOL's little memory hog?
Sorry about my rant... I just have a lot of angst about these people.
- A
Who cares about "big players" anyway? Over the years, I tried compuserv, aol, and earthlink, and I always had better luck with local ISPs. They were cheaper, had faster access, and it was easier to get a -real- tech support person on the phone. They also didn't insist on installing their version of a browser and a "remote help agent" which wanted to sit in the systray all the time. The local guys had a configuration cd which simply changed network settings, and that was it. They included a bunch of other useful apps on the cd as well, but nothing I ever installed (since I had it already).
I would always rather do business with somebody local.
http://wavetex.com/
:)
The dial-up is nation-wide. The wireless is expanding but its just in East Texas at the moment.
Disclaimer: Yes I do work for these people, so buy something and help pay my salary
In all seriousness I see this as a good thing. Smaller companies selling dial-up to local areas is usually cheaper and have much better service. Sometimes they even know what they are doing and usually their customers become a bit more savy than they would on AOL or MSN.
The Anti-Blog
Dialup is a local service, and local providers have always provided the best and cheapest connections.
Microsoft's dialup service isn't disappearing, but the company is scaling it back and ending the expensive marketing campaign. This leaves exactly how many big players in the dialup market? Dialup is still the only option in many places.
You can survive without advertising. IMHO, most people who aren't very knowledgable in this area (I.E. someone who would have to choose between AOL or "something else") are more prone to be persuaded by word of mouth anyway. Also, I wouldn't bet against the fact that there are probably some parts of the world where MS has a "monopoly" (for lack of a better term =/ )on the local dialup market anyway.
I know more than you drink.
what about the fat slob in the butterfly suit?
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Hey, I use MSN, and it's been working just FZZZTGLLLBEEEEEEEP####$&(%*$(*%&$(*%& (Carrier Lost)
... and not a single one in New York, one of the largest cities in the US.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
"It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware the Leopard.'" -- Douglas Adams, H2G2p
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
American dialup is where it has always been, you choose between giving your money to:
The Church of Scientology (Earthlink)
Time Warner and RIAA/MPAA (AOL)
Bill Gates and Palladium (Microsoft)
What to do... What to do...
You guys make it sound like msn dialup is going away. The poster himself did this right after he said that it wasn't going away.. MS just isn't going to spend 300 mil on advertising anymore. The whole 'how many large dialup players does the leave' thing makes it sound like dialup is on its way out and everyone who can't get broadband is going to be left out in the cold without access to the internet. There are a ton of dialup solutions, even if MSN dialup went away which they aren't... people would still have plenty of choices.
You can say that a
There are many many dail up ISPs. . .
Its gotten to the point where just about everyone and there uncle is reselling dail up (like us http://isp.pigscanfly.ca )
That being said there arent a whole heck of a loat of national dailup ISPs but thanks to romaing agreements you still have fairly good choice
Microsoft had a dial up bussiness? I'm curious how many /.ers heard of it. While this is a prime example of over hyping a product through expensive and ineffective advertising, I would think BG would know better. AOL has been doing this for years, but they haven't made a cent yet. Ofcourse, Microsoft actually makes easy to use (though flawed) and popular software. ...
I see alot of 'Bill Gates is Satan' replies... *braces self*
"Am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man? Or a bowling ball dreaming I am a plate of sashimi?"    
Well, based on Advertising $$$ vs. Revenue $$$ they should be dropping the XBOX real soon.
They should really try not to go into EVERY market
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Disclaimer: I work for a company that does satellite TV (and occassional satellite internet installations). This is why I'm posting anonymously.
The new DW6000 doesn't require installing software on your computer, it's all in the DW6000 unit. So you're no longer tied to Windows-only. As long as you're sighted-in to your assigned bird, then you're good to go. Yeah, rain-fade is a problem and there are occassional outages.
Biggest problem: Tech support is absolutely abysmal. My last call to support was 2 hours, 6 minutes, 37 seconds and the problem still wasn't resolved (it's a long story, but the problem was at the NOC but the NOC people didn't see it that way).
Caveat emptor, but still better than most rural dialup. Huge latency, so it's useless for games, webserving, etc. If you can afford it, try multilink bonding with 2 modems. If not, then you may want to consider DirecWay.
I don't know how much the dial-up competition keeps away broadband. Dial-up will, at least in the forseeable future, remain significantly less expensive than broadband, because it doesn't require hardware. At the same time the cost of a second phone line and Internet will generally probably be about the same as a brodband connection. I'd think the main factor keeping broadband out of areas is just the immediate lack of the required technology in that area probably coupled with either a risk of profitablity, or just the inability to currently deploy the needed hardware. I've had to work in several areas with large commercial sectors where broadband would be immediately seized upon (and made profitable for the provider), but it's not, or wasn't available yet. I'd think one of the other big reasons would be that, in general, broadband is provided by companies which don't focus on it. It's provided by cable companies or telcos whose main business focal point is the primary service they provide.
I don't try to be right, I just try to make people think
Does this mean that when consumers have a choice, much less than 90% of consumers choose MS? Which is to say that MS is a good firm, but in fact has gained it's monopoly status through methods other than technical innovation.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Here is yet another example of Microsoft NOT being an invincible force in any market they damn well please. Kinda like UltimateTV, MSN Messenger (heck, MSN itself), Xbox, etc. Unless they're giving it away for free with a Windows purchase, don't assume Microsoft offering will just magically take over a market.
None of the big players have been a wise moral decision ever. I don't have to even discus AOL, Nor MSN. The number 3 player Earthlink just fired thousands of employees and outsourced them to India (many friends of mine, I am a former Earthstink employee) And all the midsized players got bought by Earthlink either directly or in a round about way (Mindspring, Netcom, etc).
So, the big three are all just morally bad ideas. Stick with the locals and help pay some regular guys rent and car payment on his honda, and don't give your money to these megacorporations that don't care about their employees or customers.
im sure you had a point in there somewhere, but it aludes us normal folk.
We have a big call centre here. MSN is one of their big clients. I guess most of those people will soon be out of work.
From what I've heard, the big problem with MSN isn't the advertizing, it's that they install really buggy software ("MSN 8"). A lot of people ended up getting fired from the callcentre for telling MSN customers how to use the plain-old PPP settings & Internet Explorer/Outlook Express to use MSN. It solved their problems, but wasn't in the allowed script.
They pulled from Commission Junction recently also.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
Now they can direct their advertising focus to dancing office workers getting the congratulation dunk, reading server manuals, and kids playing imaginary line art pianos. We're looking at a smooth transition here.
I predict massive gains.
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
> This leaves exactly how many big players in
> the dialup market?
None at all, I hope. "Big players" differ from small ones only in advertising (more) and quality (less). And none of them have ever offered service in my area despite their lies about nationwide service.
> Dialup is still the only option in many places.
I wouldn't be able to afford anything else anyway.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
They use someone's national network, but they just added new modems in Wisconsin, so what ever system they use, is growing, not contracting.
Even with broadband, there still is a use for dialup, especially for travel. If I had a laptop, the ability to dial up in Stevens Point, WI might come in handy if I decide to visit their famous Point beer brewery.
"How come I haven't heard of it? "
You've never heard of the butterfly? It's only rivaled by Mentos!
"Derp de derp."
Well I would assume that he will be promptly executed since he failed to bring in the MSN subscriptions stipulated by his contract. Microsoft has a history of murdering ex-employees for their failures, just do a quick google on the subject.
True story.
The class-action lawsuit holding Best Buy and MSN accused of fraud for scanning MSN discs for people paying by debit or credit card and saying it's just for inventory reasons, and then six months later MSN would bill them, saying that the free period had ended, whether or not they used the access . . .
.
That MSN really is one of the most expensive dialup services in the country, and does not have the most extensive dialup number ranges. Add to this poor lines in major cities (never could get Chicago or Philly lines to stay connected longer than eight minutes), and that there are far better alternatives (Netzero/Juno, etc.) . .
That in many areas, $25 is the same price as most cable systems are offering for an introductory offer. Get faster connections without having to tie up or get another phone line? Why would you stick with dialup?
Just another failed business model for MS that was too late to be viable.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
1) If you think $50-60 a month is "skyhigh" then broadband isn't for you.
2) There are national DSL providers that the Baby Bells are compelled to resell their lines to. Britsys, my provider, is available in almost every major city. I get reliable 1.5/768 service (it's never gone down in the year i've had it) for $50 a month.
3) Almost anywhere there's a baby Bell selling DSL, there's also a cable company selling cable internet...usually faster and cheaper.
Enjoy your 56k access. (You said something about antiquated technology?)
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Get unlimited for far less or start your own ISP!
V.92/V.90 56k technology did not exist at the time of 386/486 chips. Old stuff tends to blend together, but I think 56k technology X2/56KFlex/V.90 came out around the time of Pentium/Pentium II's.
Even broadband is only $7 - $10 more than AOL dialup
Yeah, with a five-figure (USD) setup fee covering the costs of moving to a nearby area where broadband is available, getting the breadwinner a new job in that area, getting the kids enrolled in school, etc. For those want to get away from AOL's parent, who live in cities that have a monopoly TV contract with Time Warner Cable, and live too far away from the local telephone monopoly's switch for DSL, what can they do but move?
So you're saying that in 1992 you had a 56k modem? You also must've had a time machine and traveled to the future to buy it. But you still wouldn't be able to use it since no ISPs would've supported the damned thing. Hell, v.34 wasn't around until 1993 or so. And I'm not even sure when 16650A UARTs were first adopted.
porp
This leaves exactly how many big players in the dialup market? Dialup is still the only option in many places. ISP's are literally still fighting for business in the dial-up segment, and there are some big money makers: United Online (who owns Juno, Netzero, etc.), Earthlink, and others. Everyone tries their own niche, United Online touts faster dial up service through the use of modem inits, etc., but dial up is a money maker.
As for MSN not making money... Answer, might sound trollish, but they suck. I work at an ISP right now and have heard horror stories from former MSN customers, and have to sometimes deal with people who have WebTV. Instead of focusing on taking over everything in site, MS should focus on creating something secure.
MoFscker
I was a manager at Earthlink, in the Web Services Department. We had some kick-ass programmers there. Unfortunately, although our cool boss, Ranbir Chawla, from India, was a very good designer and coder too, he in turn reported to a backstabbing Hollywood special effects monster named Veronica Murdock.
Veronica liked to appoint pretty girls to management status, bypassing the very talented software engineers. Veronica's idiots kept forcing stupid designs down our throats.
Then she'd boast about how her EarthLink stock and options were worth hundreds of millions of dollars (which they were, once). Her boss, in turn, a former banker pretty-boy, was pure PR, no technical know-how.
Fortunately, the VP and Exec VP screwed up a release of Webmail so badly that two million people's email in-boxes got lost, duplicated, or otherwise chewed.
So Sky Dayton, then CEO, canned the fools. Then, when EarthLink's stock value plunged after the Mindspring "merger", the VP and Exec VP had used their stock as collateral on other market plays. We hope they lost everything.
Anyway, it was always EarthLink's secret strategy to peel away AOL and MSN subscribers, using them as a farm system, and giving the more sophisticated users to earthLink, which admitted that this strategy doomed EarthLink to always being #2 or #3 in dialup subscribers. But EarthLink would have lower "churn" and thus make a profit.
Anyway, all my techie friends at EarthLink lost their jobs when EarthLink outsourced to bangalore and the Philippines. The "Customer Support" people work from phone scripts; they know nothing.
But that's the answer. If MSN gives up, EarthLink will be #2 to AOL. And all three suck, in different styles, anyway.
Anybody know where Ranbir Chawla (good guy, though probably Asperger's) or Veronica Murdock (pure Evil, dressed for Success) have gone to? Inquiring minds want to know. Just post your answer here...
Mod parent fluff down please.
28.8k modem announced in mid-Feb 1993
56Kbps (v.90) didn't come out for several years after that.
This leaves exactly how many big players in the dialup market? Dialup is still the only option in many places.
Oh give me a break. First the "MS Bad" mantra is spewed like crazy, then when they actually pull out of a market, the same people cry foul. Ridiculous.
I could understand this maybe, oh, two or three years ago- but not now. I run a dialup ISP that markets in these rural areas that have been previously without broadband, and the few places that it doesn't make sense for one of the wireless players to show up and take all of my business, are the same places where I can't even set up access because of the cost of installing even a fractional T1 is over $1K / month.
I guess I'm a mom and pop dialup, or at least just a one man operation with outsourced support, but I think that portion of my business will have to RIP within a few years with Netzero, wired broadband, and 802.11 networks chipping away at the customer base.
My latest market that I had to pull out my access numbers was, get this, a town with 300 people that one of the wireless broadband providers decided to set up a node in. I went from 200 customers to 20 within a matter of 6 months.
I'd rather just bank the profits and sell off all the equipment before I try and protect my markets by forcing users into contracts. Perhaps its time to just get out of that business entirely, and use my "billing week" to more productive ends.
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
> In 1992, I had a US Robotics Courier V.Everything modem that cost $500. I had to
> purchase a 16650 UART chip for my serial port to get high speed transfers. It seemed
> like a lot of software was still distributed on 3.5" disks. Fast forward 12 years
> later to 2004. After all that time, modems run at exactly the same speed. V.92(?)
> was fast when the 386 and 486 were kings but not any more.
Man, you should check your memory with a doctor.. In 1992 NMP5 was a new invention
to speed up the transfers of those cool 2400 bps modems by a factor of up to 2. A
little bit later the 2496 chipsets were released (2400 data, 9600 fax), and
US-Robotics made the world go crazy with their hot 9600 HST (9600 forward 450 back)
which later improved to 14400 HST (still 450 back channel). By that time, v32 and
v32bis were standardized and gave 9600 / 14400 (full duplex!) to all.
Somewhere in 1994 there were 3 players, Telebit PEP Trailblazer with their
amazing 18432bps technology, US-Robotis with their HST 14400 (which worked very
well on noisy "satelite" connections, see Phrack/2600), and ZyXEL - the new
player who improved over v32bis with their proprietary 16800 and later even 19200
bps modes.
V34 (28800 and later 33600) was standardized around 1995 if I recall correctly.
X2/56K came a year later or so, but stayed proprietary solutions for a year
(USR vs Rockwell), until v90 was defined. Only recently v92 was introduced as
minor improvement - minor enough to not be employed in many places (eg in
Europe most dialup access points are v90, not v92).
So, while in fact the US Robotics hardware remained the same over many years
(the "dual standard" platform that came with HST 14400 (not 9600) and v32bis
had enough horsepower to add the newer modes with firmware flash upgrades),
the dialup modem technology has definately evolved in those 12 years. The
only thing is that there is simply no way to stuff more data into a channel
of such limited bandwidth. v34 is about the limit for "telephone line 3khz",
and v92 is about the limit for "channel digitally sampled at 8khz 8bit".
There's no more to do, everything is done already. You could make it cheaper
or smaller or lighter if you really wanted to, but you can't make it faster.
Marc
MS made it real easy to slap your own interface onto IE.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
...it's just that in 1992 you were downloading 50kB QWK packages,
nowadays you are downloading 50kB per e-mail.
>The UN resolution explicitly required - no, demanded - that they give a full and complete inventory of their WMDs. >"So they lost a few rounds after the war" is no excuse. Imagine the noise you liberal asshat would make if the US lost a few nuclear warheads... >So please do us a favor and shut up. Jackass.
i cles/0519pentagon19.html
How exactly can a country provide inventory of something lost? (and like Soviet era nuclear production, they didn't have accurate numbers themselves due to inventory overstatements made to fill quotas).
To compare, in 2002 the US military missplaced 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units (that comes from the 2003 accounting statements, which also show over $1 trillion was unaccounted [and that's not black-ops spending, black-ops spending properly balances the books with $1000 hammers and $15,000 toilets])
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/art
Well it's about time Microsoft got Internet users to do something active while sitting in front of our computers! So when does the MSN (r) Stationary Bike (tm) - complete with gel-filled Soft Pedals (tm) for barefoot Internet surfing - go on sale? :)
The word you are looking for is peddles as in "to sell." Soft-peddles = to soft-sell (no Tainted Love here) :)
Last I heard Direcway wasn't a Baby Bell. Hughes is more like the owners of the sky.
Ofcourse, realizing that the technology that you are using probably took a little be more to put into place than snaking a few fiber lines around and setting up a few hubs and servers, you would think that these companies would want to get a little of their money back
Place something witty here
No, it doesn't make sense. But in this world, being against something doesn't automatically mean actively fighting against it. Take, for instance, the USSR. Or North Korea. And that's why they (= your "liberals") are fighting the more immediate enemy. And leave Hussein for a later time, when they need to take him out for some reason or other (I have no idea what Bush's real motives are).
By the way, if anything at all makes sense, there's a good chance that you don't know enough about it...
(yes, I'm babbling, but it's kinda late. So I'll just stop now.)
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
See, satellites are in what's known as "space", which is about 17000 miles farther away than your porn server of choice.
BasicWave up to 256/256 for 99.00 per month?
Why so much?
In my experience they Juno is awful nowadays. I used Juno's free dial-in-email back in, gee, 1996? It was great... toll free national access numbers, very minimal if any advertising. It was very helpful to have a static email account as I cast around for a good dialup provider. However, I've had to coach internet-unaware relatives through their now-awful software and service. If you use Juno's low-cost service, you have to endure ads that run when you log in (regardless of the time it takes to make a connection, you must watch the full-motion-video and sound ad), run during the entirety of your session, and their web-spam that they try to force upon you. This seems to have the effect of totally destroying the already low available bandwidth for, wonder of wonders, WHAT THE USER WANTS TO DO. I don't know if this is United Online's doing, or what... but it's atrocious.
;).
Using NetZero for free, that's one thing. But paying 5 or 10 bucks a month for ad-driven, low quality connection is mindboggling. Unfortunately there aren't always price-competitive locals... a major problem here is attrition from major-ISP buyouts. Local, small companies provide great service, and within a year or two, seem to be absorbed by Earthlink or some other behemoth. Service goes through the toilet. Email becomes spotty (because the larger ISPs absorb so much, they have problems advising users as to the proper format for the old/new emails).
My grandmother was ready to go to RoadRunner (for 45$/month) just to get away from Earthlink. She uses her internet connection to browse stocks on Yahoo roughly once every month, so I set her up for dialup with a regional ISP for $5/month. She thanks me everytime I see her (when I come over to show her how to use her new DVD player, for instance
-Greg
And, at the rate they're going, it never will be cost effective. In MS' first fiscal quarter (July 1, 2003- September 30, 2003) the Home and Entertainment Division, where the Xbox is, lost $273 million. Most of that was from the Xbox. In MS' last fiscal year (ended June 31 2003), the Home and Entertainment Division lost $990 million dollars; again, most of that from the Xbox. And in the previous fiscal year (ended June 31 2002) the Home and Entertainment Division lost $866 million; again, mostly from the Xbox. These figures easily found in Microsoft's SEC filings.
It will never become cost efficient at this rate.
Ironically, the division that normally loses the most money, besides the Xbox part of the Home and Entertainment Division, used to be MSN. But, in this last fiscal quarter it actually came out in the black, with $58 million in profit; compared to losing $147 million in the same quarter last year.
Maybe all those dumb butterfly ads actually worked.
> Dialup is still the only option in many places.
Some of us decided shopping Amazon in a speedy fashion wasn't worth the price of broadband and have chosen dial-up despite a multitude of other, pricier options.
Also, AOL cant even give their service away anymore. A good friend is on dialup, and had to go elsewhere because she just couldnt get a connection. When she cancelled, they offered her up to three months free- but if you cant get thru, what good is free?
She is paying somebody (I think Earthlink) about $20/month, gets no spam (well, no more than ordinary), and isnt hit with her ISP spamming her for junk or services.
Im sure that MSN, which was pretty much based on the AOL business model, is in the same boat. Relying on advertising just seems like such a dot-com era business model. Especially when you realize that television has pretty much trained people to ignore advertising!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Prices there are for businesses. We aren't actually offering wireless to residential customers until we can provide hotspots and buy some more bandwidth (ahh the joys of working for startups :) ). I think they are going to start residential at $29.95 and it should be ready sometime in Feb.
The Anti-Blog
What are you smoking? :-)
LOAD "SIG",8,1
When the cable was deployed also makes a big difference for smaller markets. My parents are served by Time-Warner, out in the sticks. The cable went in about 10 years ago, as I understand it AFTER the FCC required full-duplex wiring. I have friends served by Comcast, 5 miles south of the parents, also in the sticks. They had cable for much longer, since before the requirements changed.
My parents got RoadRunner years before Comcast rolled out their internet service in that area, and I have friends who live in bigger markets that STILL can't get cable internet, also served by Comcast. Is it because of hardware limitations, or a lack of desire on the part of the cable company vs. AOL-TW to get everyone a fat pipe?
DSLExtreme. Locally run (Canoga Park, CA) and geek-friendly. Consistently rated high on Broadband Reports. They are now available in all areas served by SBC. If you are with Verizon, you have to live in Southern California to use the peanutbuttery goodness of DSLExtreme as your broadband ISP.
As far as DSLExtreme's dialup goes, it's also dead-solid perfect. They resell Level 3 points of presence...solid.
And I can assure you that you won't be supporting anyone but a bunch of geeks who started an ISP. No connections to the Cof$, RIAA and MPAA or Bill Gates.
No, they aren't paying me for this. They should, but they aren't. Just a happy user for many years, back when they were So-Cal only.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
have Yes, but on the consumer side of things the X Box is awesome, if I can ever weight my ass down I'll be able to use a LinBox as a far superior machine to what I have now(and then adding more memory, extra hard drives, ect.) Microsoft has said themselves that they don't expect to make cash until the X Box 2 comes out. Remember this is microsoft we're talking about. It's the one company that can afford things like this.
"Am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man? Or a bowling ball dreaming I am a plate of sashimi?"    
After all that time, modems run at exactly the same speed.
Regulations were put into place restricting modems to this speed. I believe it was to limit the phone company's obligation to provide you with a phone line that would carry all that bandwidth.
Look at DSL modems, though. They pass a whole lot of data around.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
It isn't the resources, it's the rights. Who has rights to string another set of wires on the telephone poles?
As it turns out, whoever the government is in the area. We've got an ISP here who is stringing wire in the townships, who will give them permission.
These folks get nice DSL, and a new local phone company and great long distance reates at about $50 month.
Once they go into incorporated villages and cities, it's no go. SBC has a nice conference presentation and dinner for the elected, and then ISP access is legislatively denied.
i'll start out by saying that if there is a small, local ISP near you, it might be a good way to go, provided you don't travel or plan to move in this lifetime.
with that said ...
i've been a satisfied EarthLink customer for many years now. I switched to their broadband offering since it first came out, and have gladly seen their services dramatically improve. EarthLink makes a lot a sense in my case, as i do travel around quite a bit and find it easy to find and connect to a local POP while using a portion of the 20 hours of free dial-up time that come with my broadband account. They have consistently been at the forefront of spam-fighting efforts, be them legal, or thru software. Their spam-fighting solutions are top-notch, especially since their recently-released Total Access for Mac OS X which allows you to sync your Mac OS X Address Book data with their server, allowing you to almost instantly "whitelist" everyone you know, as Mail.app makes it easy/automatic to add contacts to your address book based on mails received and/or sent. I do also appreciate their other initiatives to fight other Internet annoyances: Pop-Up blocker, server-side scrubbing of e-mail-bound viruses (Virus Blocker), SpyWare blocker which have been resulting in my having to spend less time trying to help my PC-using friends debug their machines. They've also recently released for both Mac OS X and windows, their "EarthLink Accelerator" which is totally bad-ass and results in a dramatic accelration of web-surfing, especially when i use my 15" Apple Aluminum Powerbook's bluetooth connectivity with my Sony Ericsson t610 to dial-up to my EarthLink account at speeds that are limited to less than 14.4Kbps. EarthLink Accelerator is technology licensed from Propel Networks, these guys are really really cool.
so again, Mom and Pop shops are a good alternative, but do keep EarthLink in mind if you're an impatient Internet user. (which i am, to a great extent heh).
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
The X Box, while not cost effective at the moment, is actually superior to the other 'big three' consoles. Many see it as the future of gaming because it's basically a standardized CPU.
Standardized CPU? The 68k CPU that resided in the Genesis wasn't standardized? The 6502 that the NES used wasn't standardized?
The future of gaming is, and always has been, fun games. It's not about CPUs, RAM, or video chips. They make making games *easier*, or harder, but they don't make games *better.*
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Normally, I would agree that the US with WMD is different than Iraq with WMD, but with Bush as President, I'm not so sure.
I was born in the US, I live in the US, I like the US, but I think George Bush is the biggest danger to long term peace that there is right now.
He's a scary man, with scary ideas.
> This leaves exactly how many big players in the dialup market?
Ummm... Well, there's AOL, but nobody uses them 'cause they suck. There's
Earthlink, but nobody uses them much either. There'ss MSN... I think I know
one person who uses MSN. There's Juno, but almost nobody uses Juno either,
because it's inferior. A few cheapskates use that NetZero, but to most of us
it's worth the extra ten bucks a month to get decent service. There's demon,
but you have to live in the UK.
In any given community un the US, on the other hand, there are anywhere between
3 and 30 local or regional outfits who all charge the same monthly rate for
unmetered access, provide enough lines that you never have trouble getting on,
provide good, solid, reliable email, access to usenet if you want it, and
(gasp) have an office within thirty minutes' drive of your house, and a tech
support guy who lives in the area and speaks English. We call these places
"ISPs", and almost everyone I know uses one of them.
I get my access through Bright Choice, which is located in Ontario, about
20 minutes from here. They provide the dialup lines but outsource most of
the other stuff to bright.net, which is local to Ohio. There are a number
of competitors. Probably the single most popular ISP around here is richnet,
which is based in Mansfield, about 30 minutes from here. Almost nobody uses
AOL, though *theoretically* they're based in Columbus, an hour from here.
MSN is (very marginally) more popular than AOL because they have a reseller
here in town (at the local Radio Shack), but I've not heard good things about
their service from their users. Richnet and bright.net OTOH get good word
of mouth recommendations consistently. I bet richnet has a 30% market share
in Galion, maybe more. With so many mostly-identical options, that's quite
a lot of share for one outfit to have.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
In 1995 I got my 4Mbit Zenith cable modem to connect to the Wageningen University network... 3 years later the cable company was taken over and they switched to 3Com modems... only 2Mbit with a lousy service.
Dial-up will, at least in the forseeable future, remain significantly less expensive than broadband
[local quote for me... www.netventure.net
1MB Family Plan ($29.95)
Up to 1024k download and 128k upload,
EarthLink Basic High Speed
For a limited time, get your first three months of EarthLink Basic High Speed for just $19.95 per month*!
Comcast... tele-ads say $30 monthly for 6 months
Based on my experence... Comcast and Earthlink were perfectly willing to pricematch each other, and someone else they never even heard of. My local cable isp's upstreem sucks at 128k, comcast and earthlink both offer faster downstreems and 384k upstreem I believe. When I left both of them, they both offered between $20-$30 monthly for their service for a 6month or 12 month commitment.
I don't know of anyone who's paying more then $30 monthly for broadband... I know a few people paying $22.50 or so for dialup.
Yea, cable / dsl cost more, but 7.50 more monthly at present due to either specials, promos, or in one case an always low price.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Just as you shouldn't live in a desert, or in a flood plain, you shouldn't live where there's no broadband access. It's just that simple. :)
Microsoft started a $300 million marketing campaign 14 months ago to attract dial-up users, and has decided to abandon that effort.
Does it mean we'll get rid of the obnoxious butterfly commercials? I've never used their service and I do not intend to, but those commercials make me feel like grabbing the remote and turning off the TV immediately.
You could almost interpet this as criticizing Microsoft for not attempting to dominate the dialup market.
I agree with you, but wanted to add that in fact they did give it away for free (for six months) with lots of new PC's - and still they had the issues you mentioned.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The reason for the notice is to tell VC's it's OK to fund companies where Microsoft is in the same market, instead of just running for the hills when they come in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For mass-marketted dialup services, the soft departure of MSN from dialup will be a big hit and a boon for the other mass-market services like AOL, Earthlink, and friends--but don't forget the dialup resellers. It's still a profitable and growing business. I pay $9.95/month for unlimited dialup access through a popular USENET provider who resells the dialup service of Megapop.
Kriston
V34 (28800 and later 33600) was standardized around 1995 if I recall correctly. X2/56K came a year later or so, but stayed proprietary solutions for a year (USR vs Rockwell), until v90 was defined. Only recently v92 was introduced as minor improvement - minor enough to not be employed in many places (eg in Europe most dialup access points are v90, not v92). V.34 was available in late 1994, and Rockwell's V.FC was available in the summer of 1994.
AOL has no local access numbers for.
I live in rural PA. Amazingly, I have broadband. Yet the closest acces number for AOL is in NEW YORK. Most rural areas have regional carriers that amount to an internet monopoly, and charge AOL prices for no extra content.
And by the way, if you would look in the telephone book of any given city, you would see no shortage of independent companies begging for your patronage. AOL is far short of a monopoly, especially in rural areas.
but there's no money being made in trying to corner that market.
The problem at MSN is not that they are selling dialup, but that they thought that it would be proffitabl;e to spend $314 Million on advertizing a service that sells for so little in a market that has so many competitors.
I wonder how much profit AOL actually sees from thier service. I'm guessing very little if any.
Attempting to dominate the dialup service market through extensive advertising seems more a play to attract investors or increase stock market value than it does an attempt to make an honest living.
Read, L
This is good news actually because it will give more business to the little and medium sized ISP's in Northern America for dialup access. It might even be good for cable companies to, because as an example here in Saskatchewan, both Sasktel and Access Cable offer dialup internet access along with their broadband offerings.
And, when I lived in British Columbia for several years there was LOTS of small to medium ISP's who had good service and tech support for dialup, and had offices you could actually drive to!
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Seems funny how you got broadband in a rural area like that yet no dialup? But, you do make a good point that for some people, especially if they live out in the sticks and like country living, dialup is the only option many people may have, even if it's only a small ma and pop ISP in a small hicktown or whatnot.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
And, even a lot of the broadband cable and DSL providers offer dialup access as well! For example Sasktel (DSL) and Access Communications (Cable) offers dialup services. And you can even get what I call "Poor man's DSL", DSL at 128K in Saskatchewan for $23.99 a month, pretty damn cheap.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Even most small towns have access from local ISPs for $10-15 per month. Dialup is shrinking as broadband becomes more available. I'd bet that at least half of MSN's dialup subscribers are just waiting until a contract expres so they can get something cheaper. People are also realizing that most of MSN's 'features' are really just branded content from free partner websites.
Oh, I was taking the phrase, "CPU" literally.
I disagree. The use of a non-standard graphics and audio APIs(DirectX. Sure, it's in high use in the gaming market, but I'll bet my own ass that OpenGL is more often used in the many many many other applications for 3D) is a hinderance.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
::More to the point, they are a lot harderto lose ::than said rounds some draftees burried in a ::combat situation in 1988.
:-)
This is beyond getting funny.
Look at the numbers, the value and the damn size of these things. How the hell can you "misplace" them? Just forget to lock them when you pak your plane before a burger kin? even this would not be "misplacement". It would be theft and accounted for as such.
Damn, "misplacing a tank". Great. Next thing is they forget where their own barracks are.
And the money - some people up there in the US belong to jail. Fast. ow can you not account for 1 trillion USD? WHoly damn shit, don#t they run computerized accounting and don't they have purchase order workflows in place?
What a wonder the US military won in Irak. Imagine, the commander orders an attack and his troops are "misplaced" in the wrong country
Microsoft said that ... it would offer a premium service for $9.95 a month ... to provide ... advanced information services like photo editing
Will it let you edit pictures of bank notes?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Minor nitpick - the emperor at that time was named Hirohito; it was the period of his reign that was referred to as the Showa era.
First, Bill makes certain he has a billion dollars, but everybody sees the first MS dividend as a good thing. It helps maintain the stock price.
Then MS starts moving development to India, but everybody assumes they are just joining the offshoring trend.
Then they publicly announce that they have stopped growing. And the stock price does not drop?
Now they cut back promoting losing and low profit products. They publicly announce they are leaving the dial-up market, and everybody talks about the rise of broadband.
The next step will be to start selling those divisions before their value declines. Will this be considered great business strategy?
The fall of MS is such entertainment. They have less than 2 years left, so enjoy it while you can.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
This is just fine with me. At least I can put off my efforts at finding a 20 foot flyswatter to get rid of that stupid leaping butterfly that kept getting in my face whenever I wanted to see something cool.
well I have to say earthlink is pretty good, even with dialup, their dialup and highspeed are reliable, them and speakeasy are the only isp's i'd trust.
I'm tempted to start an isp myself, and stay low key, mostly around the areas where I live. offer a reliable line that doesnt bullshit you every 3 minutes. but that's a wish of mine.
Try something reputable like Power Hoster. They reputably resell time on networks like surf.net and pop.net as "cheap isp". I've used them and they mostly work. I imagine tht they work about as well as MSN ever did and that this is how any mom and pop outfit will work. AOL's network does work better, but use of a windoze only dial up client and the murder of Netscape drove me away from them after 8 years of service.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I remember 16550A UARTs back on 486 boards, that must have been in '92 or '93.
You obviously haven't bought any classical music lately.
Neither have most other iTunes Music Store customers. Classical music tracks often show up as "Album Only", turning off customers. And, realistically, how much would you estimate of what flows across KaZaA is classical music?
I recommend not killing people and get modded a fucking troll. This asshat starts talking about "the Japs" and nadda... nice.
I guess slaughtering scores of civilians is now the slashdot approved way of doing things?
So if they spent $14 million in advertising, they would have broke even. Maybe instead of cutting the product or development costs, they should focus less on advertising. Then again, I'm biased...