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Many Internet Users Happy With Dial-Up
prostoalex writes "With cable and DSL operators constantly pushing the values of broadband, and with the President of the United States himself announcing broadband access a priority, the New York Times reports (free reg. req.) that some people actually are perfectly satisfied with their 56K connection. In February 2003 Pew Internet conducted a survey, where they found out 60% of dial-up users weren't interested in switching, a year later in 2004 the percentage was roughly the same."
Ok, why is this a suprise to anyone? Many users do nothing more than look at a few pages and send/receive email. For them, that is the internet, that's all they want and care about. So, for those the people, there is no reason to pay the extra for broad band. When you can get dial-up for US$10/month a month, or less if you are willing to put up with ads, and basic broadband starts at US$30/month, is it really worth it to get your email a second or two faster?
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
As a sysadmin at a small to midsized web hosting firm, I find that dialup is all I need. I have tried time and time again to justify broadband at my house but as a single income household with 2 kids and my disabled wife, I can't afford it and do not really need it. If I need something that's broadband only (Latest distro ISO or something) I login to my server here at the NOC (45MB DS3) and download it there. Then I grab it on my laptop the next day at work. NO BIG DEAL. Even if I did not have 45mb/sec here at work I would still be OK with dialup. Heck most of us just check mail right?
Seriously though, the most I do is check mail, a few forums, and some web publishing. All low bandwidth stuff. So, I agree with the story. Broadband is nice but not necessary.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
So at any given time, 60% of dialup users do not want to switch. 40% do switch. Next year, 60& want to switch => some of the original 60% must have switched sides to the 40%.
In other news: dog bites man.
Yeah I agree. Once I tasted broadband there was no chance of ever gong back.
what?
The 60% number remaining unchanged for 2 years means nothing. How did the population of dialup users change? did it increase? decrease? or stay the same?
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Most of the /. crowd is going to cringe when they hear this, but I have a 28.8 internet connection. The way the phone switch is setup, it effectively cuts all modem connections from anywhere in town to 28.8 and eliminates any possibility of DSL.
Our cable company isn't going to upgrade it's infrastructure anytime soon to support cable modems either.
I've lived with it for years, and it's not all that bad. It's fine for e-mail and web browsing, and when I need a kernel update I just let it download overnight. Theoretically I could download just under 7GB a month, which actually beats some of your cable download caps! My only other option is satellite, but the hardware is Linux unfriendly and the latency is annoying (even more so than 28.8).
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
This is exactly the reason for these stats. There's not a single person I know who's used broadband for more than a month that would be willing to switch back to dial-up.
Give all those people 1 or 2 months of free trial broadband, and then force them back to dial-up and I garauntee that those percentage's will change pretty fast.
But you get so many more channels! And there's on-screen digital menus! And you can get a personal recorder! And! And! And!
Yeah, all true. All very nifty keen. I just have things that are more interesting to me to spend $360/year on (or, say, $10,800 over the next 30 years before I retire). However, I can't stand being without broadband.
I have relatives that just like to send e-mail. They compose off-line and batch-send. They use the web sometimes - mostly to shop - but often don't connect every day. Now they pay $15 a month or whatever for access and you could say that another $15 isn't much more...I'm sure when the difference gets down to zero they'll go broadband, but...
Advice: on VPS providers
If there were 200,000 people in 2003 and 120,000 didn't care, then in 100,000 people in 2004 and 60,000 didn't care, you still work out with the same percentage of 60%.
I'd be interested in seeing the raw numbers on this. In particular, I'd like to know the differential number on the "didn't cares" to see how many of those switched to broadband.
Out of those 60% how many are the type of person that fears any type of change, and only uses the internet to get an email from their son billy?
I'm guessing that most of these people wouldn't care about the difference it will make, because the time it takes to download one email with dial up, and the time it takes to download one email with broadband really isn't all that different.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
I'd like to see the study of users who to switch BACK to 56k after having broadband for a year or two. I bet by then it would be a necessity.
TK
Some people clung onto their old cell phone providers even after another provider started better or cheaper service in their area simply because they wanted to keep their numbers. Number portability was the solution to that problem.
Now, it'd be relatively simple to do this, just require that ISPs offer forwarding service for up to a year after a customer cancels, and the new ISP can kick back an e-mail telling anybody who's e-mails that the user has moved to them.
Of course, no ISP is going to offer this without the government ordering them to... but couldn't the FTC or FCC step in on this one?
Switching providers means more than just cutting dialup and getting a faster connection for $X more a month. There's also a few other issues at hand. The main one, of course, is the e-mail address. People *hate* to change their e-mail address. I'm one of them -- I pay for a proxy spam filtering service and deal with 3000+ spams a month to an e-mail address I've had for the last 8 years. It's a purely psychological attachment.
;-).
And, the price difference is more than you might expect. Not everyone out there uses $24/month AOL. $9.95 dial-up is available from mom-and-pop ISPs all over the country, and some of these are even beginning to offer compressing proxies (ala AOL's "Optimized") to improve web browsing over 56k links.
As for the AOL users, they are accustomed to the special features of AOL, and yes, their aol.com e-mail address. AOL Broadband is $15 a month, on top of your connectivity bill.
And above that, there's just the percieved "hassle" of switching. They're relatively happy with what they have, and don't want to deal with getting a new service, cancelling the old one, telling their friends their new e-mail addresses, etc. etc. etc.
I wonder if number portability requirements will ever extend to e-mail addresses
I definitely agree. There's hardly a great campaign of public education out there. For me, the "always-on" side of broadband is a great advantage, but not many people outside the IT realm would be aware of that. I have a wireless router (cheap) hooked up to my ADSL so that I can open up my laptop anywhere in the house or nearby and be reading news, researching, working, emailing, etc. 60% might not want broadband, but how many of those would be aware that these things are even possible?
I find that far more liberating and useful than being tethered to a desk in a corner near the phone jack, and having to tie up the phone line while I'm online.
I don't know what call costs are in the US, but in Australia, you're generally paying 20c a call to dial-up. If you dial up 2-3 times a day (norm in my house pre-broadband), you've got your $25/month dial-up account + $18/month in calls. Suddenly your slow-poke connection that controls the phone line too is $43/month and not looking so fantastic against the $59/month ADSL connection with 12GB of data allowance.
I'm more than aware that families are being hit with costs like never before (monthly bills for gas, water, electricity, mobile phones (my household has at least 4), internet access, pay TV, and so on, but I'd choose broadband over pay TV, and definitely over dial-up. Imagine never hearing a modem handshake again. Bliss!
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
These people will not be happy to miss the good content only available online, as there is already some kind of.
Thats because broadband is not enough broad and "everywhere" that companies who have to sell and distribute heavy content does not currently do it.
Thinking that a slow connection is enough is the same as not thinking about what next in 4 days, or maybe 6.
Humans should not refuse a faster and better way to communicate.
I thought I had this all figured out a while back. I always figured broadband was a lifestyle thing. Having been a gamer for god knows how long now, I've always done things like keep my computer on 24/7. To me, dialup was an inconvenience - it kept me from being online instantly, the same way that I could flick the mouse and be back at my desktop instantly. When I went to broadband it was obvious that that was the way to go: always-on, instant access. It became a lifestyle change thing. I even observed the behavior change with different girlfriens over time: they'd go from "let's look up the pizza place on the phone book/yellow pages" to "look it up online".
;) is just impossible to turn my back to.
I actually observed the exact same change with my parents: They used to keep the computer off, as there was no reason to keep it on. If they needed something online (like checking their e-mail or looking at a couple of webpages), they'd turn on the PC, wait for it to boot up, fire up the dialup, wait for the connection, download e-mail/check stuff on web, and disconnect as quickly as possible since a) people could be calling on the phone; and b) phone calls were metered by the minute over where they live (Spain). For them, using the computer was a big barrier: You had to go through a long, involved series of steps before even being able to do what you wanted. Looking up someone's information was easier using 411 (over there, 003) than using the PC for it.
Once I convinced them to do the DSL thing, the lifestyle changed completely - the computer remained on constantly, all you had to do to go online and check something was sit in front of it and type - it was always on . I know that's the point of it, but it's a huge mentality change. Seeing the transformation firsthand was amazing.
The curious thing, I find, is the number of people in the article and in the forums here that have experienced broadband, and do so on a daily basis, yet still manage to resist it. Self discipline, cost, just-don't-need-it come up as (to me, surprising) reasons why they say no to broadband.
To me, broadband vs. dialup is like cable/satellite vs. over-the-air reception, faxes vs. mail (back in the 80s), air travel vs. jumping on a boat to come to the US. It's just stuff that once you cross a certain frontier, a certain line, you can't just uncross it, you can't go back. The always-on availability of information, entertainment, and yes, even pr0n
Amazing stuff.
-Jack Ash
Not really. A friend of mine works for a dial-up (plus resold broadband) ISP, and their business seems stable. For one thing, there are new dial-up users being added to the market every day; not all of those new computer sales are replacements, and not all replaced computers are retired. Plus there is a core of dial-up users who will "never" go away (i.e. until there's something similarly affordable, ubiquitous, and portable available).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Cost of dial up service: 19.99 CND (varies but thats the average for unlimited us)
DSL: 36.99 CND.
Cable: 40.00 CND.
Everybody I know is on broadband. There isn't anyone I know who surfs the net regularly that isn't. Over here it's cheap, ussually reliable and unlimited use. Even dl/ul ratios ar elargly ignored. I did 25 gb last month and it cost me the same as when I do 5 gb. (I'm told if I ever do 50+ gb they might send me a letter to complain).
Fed up with your connection: move to canada.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Some months ago my connection speed went from 1.5 DSL to 28.8 (previous local provider got bought out and my modem/router was incorrectly configured for the new provider, so I had to use a backup external dial-up).
It wasn't all that bad, actually. It required a bit of planning and no Daily Show video downloads, but it made me wonder why I was paying CAN$40/month for DSL while only getting double FAX speed.
I'm a webmaster and computer programmer. Like Danielle Kolko in the article you didn't bother to read, I have high speed access at work and dialup at home. I had broadband at home for a while, when the costs were lower, but then I chucked it. I have more time than money, and there is always plenty for me to do. When I'm going to download large files at home, I load up a bunch of articles first and read them while the file is transferred in the background. Or I go do something else and come back later.
I get told thousands of times a day that I need something RIGHT NOW and almost every time it's a bunch of crap. Every time I believed those lines I ended up feeling cheapened. When broadband is the only option, I will have broadband, or perhaps nothing.
Especially that evil one down here called Bell South. The same wonderful company that has recently tacked on an additional 3 dollars disguising it as a federal fee.
Phone companies, Bell South is by the worse, don't want to offer lower priced products. Not only do they want out taxes to pay to build their lines they want to charge us insane rates to use them. Everything about the phone company is extortion. Example, if I want Caller ID I have to pay about 8 dollars extra! Now, I can get caller id as part of a package of services for only 12.95 (or thereabouts).
What about their $30 a month DSL? Sure, 256 down! and only IF I subscribe to their expensive packages on my phone, like that $12.95 I mentioned earlier.
I truly believe the only reason the Cable companies can keep such high rates is because the phone companies do it.
I have given serious consideration to backing down to dial-up through a low cost provider. 30-40 dollars a month savings doesn't sound like much until you work it out across the year, then its 360 to 480. Thats many good dinners out with someone, some good computer hardware, or one motorcylce payment for me!
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You're probably right that anyone outside of the IT realm may not understand the value of "always on", but the "always on" nature of broadband is a BIG plus for Aunt Tillie (or Mom, in my case.) The one caveat is that someone with a clue has to do the initial setup.
I originally set my mother up with dialup, since that was all that was available in her area. Once a month or so I had to do telephone support with her to try and figure out what she had broken. The phone number got erased from the dialer program, or the automatic logoff would stop logging off (her phone would be busy for days!) or the automatic logon would go crazy (logging her on every few minutes) or *something* funny would be going on.
She'd go for weeks with things not working "because she didn't want to bother me."
Broadband made a HUGE difference. I put a firewall on her machine, and that lessened my worries about "always on" being a big security hole (no, it's not invulnerable, but it'll encourage to cracker to move on to an easier target...)
But she uses the internet far more often than she used to, because she doesn't have to worry about how to get logged in, it just works! And she can talk on the phone (so I can help her) while she's on the net. She can keep in touch with friends and family using email, which she loves.
The speed is fine, but she doesn't notice it all that much. She really DOES notice that getting on is effortless now, though.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
Actually, I just installed a rotary phone.
I even put in one of the old 4-prong jacks just so I could plug it in.
(it's a candlestick style that looks good in my living room, I already had the phone and the jack, and it still works just fine.)
Of course, I also have a 5.8GHz cordless... because 2.4 might interfere with the 802.11, and I'd be really annoyed if I couldn't use the DSL from anywhere in the house if I want to.
These people have obviously never tried to download a Microsoft service pack or new version of IE... then again, why would they? A significant percentage probably don't know what a service pack is, why they would want it, or whether or not their AV is up to date. If they don't want broadband, it's perfectly fine with me.
The last time I used dilaup was in 1994, just before leaving for college. Since then, I've had megabit-level internet access continuously since. I've just moved out of Seattle to look for work in LA. I'm staying at my grandmother's (rather nice) place just south of LA where she connects via dialup.
First attempt was cable modem. The cable company wanted to wait three weeks before they could drop the modem off. In order to pick up the modem, the account holder needs to be present. Problem is, the account holder is my deceased grandfather (grandma doesn't want utility accounts in her name, as she is worried the spammers will know she is a widow and untold horrors will follow).
So, I called up a quality DSL provider and ordered the best service they could guarantee for the line -- 1.5m down / 256k up. The DSL gear arrived in a few days, and service followed a few days later. The modem synced at 384k down / 128k up. The ISP's bandwidth tester measured 200k down and 22k up. Even better, the connection is highly intermittant, much of the time a ping to the ISP-side router results in 65 % packet loss! Actual service is ocasionally 2-3x dialup speed, but mostly intermittant. Grandma can't understand why her emails take hours to send (because the mail server can't be contacted...).
I've arranged for the DSL people to contact the incumbant teleco and work on the line. This may happen in the next few days.
At the same time, I'm in touch with the cable modem ppl who claim they can get a modem and install dude out in two or three days. Would be nice if they can accomplish this, but I'm not hopeful.
As an experienced IT guy who has made fiber and DS3 cross connects, planned redundant router installations for small colos, and developed large portions of major software packages, I find this process very frustrating. For grandma, the difficulty is a thousand miles over her head.
Grandma is eager to get back to dialup (which I've done, until the teleco or the cable ppl can give us a decent connection). I'm back to alternating between Starbucks WiFi, and bluetooth+GPRS.
Even better -- Grandma's house is right on the beach in a rather high-rent neighborhood. The houses are huge, so the density of customers per square mile is low, and the distance to the CO is high.
My parents wouldn't even use the internet if it wasn't always there. The hassle of dialing up was enough of a barrier to keep them from going online. I had a computer for years, my parents tried it once in a while but never really used it. Then after having DSL in my room for a few years I setup a computer upstairs for them. It was there for a good 6 months before they started to use it. But now they are on the net all the time. Checking the weather, watching my spending on my joint collage account, reserving plane tickets, etc... They don't use email much, mom gets enough at work and dad hasn't even got an account. They never would of gotten into it if they had to dial up.
Most people don't want broadband because they don't really use the net with their dialup, just email. They have used that web thing once in a while, but its just a toy or an addon to email for them.
If someone asked me how to get on the internet these days. Dial up would be the last thing I tell them.
It isn't a speed thing at all, its all about being always connected without tieing up the phone. Speed is only something us geeks really care about.
The internet just isn't the internet without broadband.
God, root, what is the difference?
It's like the drug pushers...the first hit is always free.
I stick with dial-up at home because the fix at work is free. I do the DL/s at work at much higher than DSL or Cable speeds and dial-up gets me on Slashdot and e-mail on the weekends.
Why spend the extra $30/month if you don't have to? With the (30*12) $360/year saved, I buy a toy like a digital camera or GPS.
In my area Comcast is the only provider. They charge an extra $10/month if your not a cable TV subscriber. The extra surcharge is keeping me from broadband at home.
The truth shall set you free!
In addition to new dial-up users as the AC mentioned, you also failed to account for a large chunk of "last mile" customers who can't switch away from dial-up no matter how desperately they may want to, like my parents were for at least 3 years.
Many people HATE dial-up but have no alternative.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").