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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."
not everyone is interested in making first post.
Most people don't wish to pay for premium channels with their cable subscription.
This boggles my mind, I couldn't live without broadband.
:)
I'd be very interested to see how many of these people have ever experienced broadband, and if their attitudes would change if they had.
I realize that broadband can be overkill for many people, but even casual web-surfing can be painfully slow on dial-up.
Oh well, more bandwidth for me
There's nothing like the shear deluge of porn available to broadband users to turn one of sex entirely.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
...but have they actually had the chance of using broadband to compare it to dial-up?
Definitely the case of 'once you've tried it, you'll never go back...'
Out of those 60% how many have actually used high speed and know what a difference it makes?
I would guess a lot of users are happy with the 'portability' of a dial-up connection - ie. laptop in a hotel room. Broadband may be ubiquitous, but not as much as dial-in appears to be.
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
I guess they're just not as smart as some of us.
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.
Let's consider the users who do nothing but e-mail with their Internet connection...
- Faster speed is not much of a benefit to them. They don't download images very often, and they're fine with walking away from their computer for however long it takes while those downloads happen.
- They don't particularly care about their phone callers getting busy signals, they don't get that many really important phone calls anyway.
- To them, changing e-mail addresses would be a nightmare. Some are even clinging onto address that they've had since 1994. The ISP may have gone defunct, but the old domain name is still being supported by the ISP that aquired them. Look at all the legacy domains Earthlink is still supporting.
- And, we're also talking about people who hate monthly bills. For retired people, they plan their budgets very carefully and even a $10/month difference bothers them.
Bottom line... not everybody wants an always-on Internet connection. Sure, everybody reading Slashdot who doesn't have one wants one... but there are a lot of people in the USA who wouldn't even know what Slashdot is.
A majority of people on Dial Up dont realize how slow it is because they have never had the chance to use broadband on a daily basis. I have known people that were "Completely Satisfied" with their dialup connections, only until they got broadband and couldn't imagine using the internet without it.
Text only pages, or ones with minimal images, are even much faster on broadband. They are still somewhat bearable with Dial Up, but anything with a decent image takes forever. Not to mention streaming legal videos, playing legal games, and downloading pr0....gressively more material.
60 percent are satisfied. That means 40 percent want to switch. If you estimate that half of that 40 percent will actually switch to broadband, then the number of modem users has shrunk by 20 percent.
So instead of saying "60 percent of modem users are happy", you could just as easily say "modem market shrinking by 20 percent per year". Most analysts would call that a dying industry.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. It's all how you spin it. (i.e. no story here, move along.)
The percentage of dialup may have remained the same, but the number of total dialup users has decreased (I think), as more and more of the country gets wired with broadband. So while it may be 60% and 60% now, it's probably more like 100 million then and 75 million now. (Numbers completely pulled out of my ass, but you get my point.)
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Some people will happily drink soda or juice through what is, in fact, a coffee stirrer. Much smaller than a straw, but it acts enough like a straw to make it useful, even though the transfer rate is considerably slower.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I also seem to notice that the friends without broadband seem to accomplish more and lead happier lives. Their lawns are not 8" tall all the time, the cars are always clean and they seem to keep a more tidy abode. Coincidence? Hmm...
Now where did I put that Slack ISO? Ahh, I'll just download it again. While I'm doing that, I might as well go check out Slashdot or Fark. My grass can wait 'til another day. Like I care what the neighbors think...
Thank God for broadband.
Ligaguinggligagiggagoogoogwillgo
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.
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?
Having been a DSL user for a few years now, I can't personally imagine going back to a slow dial-up connection. The same can't be said about people going the other way, though.
:)
For a great majority of users, having a computer is enough of an issue as it is. It's a mysterious machine to them, and plugging in extra cash without knowing the benefits isn't an option.
Even if they know and understand the speed benefits, it's often not enough to convince the low-end users to switch. So the pictures download noticeably faster...then what? Unless they're downloading pr0n or swapping major files, it's not that big a deal to them. Unfortunately, this is probably the same crowd that won't wait for Windows Updates to download because it's too much of a hassle.
If you want to put the Linux vs Microsoft parallel to this situation, there's an analogy waiting to be used. People who are used to dialup will not move to the unfamiliar unless absolutely convinced that it's better, faster, and more stable. There's a lot of Windows users out there who are afraid to jump operating systems simply because they'd rather stick to the familiar.
Same thing with dialup vs. broadband. Some people will willingly suffer through low speeds because they don't believe they need anything better.
Of course the analogy breaks the moment pricing is mentioned.
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
.. switch to broadband if they feel they don't need it? I wouldn't switch to a porsche if I'm happy with my Chevy for daily commuting unless I want a jazzy car with high performace.
So why would a user switch to broadband for just checking emails and browsing some websites if this can be done reasonably well using dial-up?
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
I started out on dial up way way way back when the only access was dial up BBS's...like The Ward Board and other BBS's in the Chicago area. Then moved to dial-up Internet usage through Interaccess...also in Chicago. Through Interaccess I then moved up to ISDN connection...then finally AT&T came to my area and I signed up with @home/ATT.
I went through the @home/ATT/Comcast shake-ups, but I ALWAYS loved my broadband. Even with Comcast I didn't have much downtime and the speeds were just great. I loved it.
But now, me and my family had to move to St. Joseph, Michigan and the only high-speed (where I am) is this fly-by-night ISP called "Green County Cable". I mean, they SUCK. They are down quite a bit, and their speeds are 400 kilo bits sec...down from the great 3Mega bits sec I was getting when I was last on Comcast (they upgraded from 1.5 to 3).
Add to the fact that I'm paying the exact same price I was paying for Comcast...and it SUCKS. But even after all that, no way would I ever ever ever go back to plain dial-up. It's just way too slow.
I have a feeling that if all those people that are satisfied with dial-up were given a taste of broadband, they'd never go back. I know from experience my mother-in-law. She's been on AOL for years, and had no intention of ever switching. But Comcast came through her neighborhood and offered to hook her up for free for 30 days...and she's never gone back to dial up.
It's like the drug pushers...the first hit is always free.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
The main thing I like about DSL is the persistent connection. If I need an internet resource, I can grab it quickly...without having to wait for the modem.
The people I know who are staying with phone lines do so because they like getting all of their internet chores done is a single short session.
I think the overall download speed really is a secondary issue to how you organize your online time.
I think it depends on what us dial-up users want. For me:
- I hate anything with FLASH
- I am not interested in movie clips from cnn.com or any other website for that matter
- I don't download music
- I don't online game
- I occationally download a pdf file from the DMV or other useful site, but when I do, I can wait for it
- I don't chat or IM
So yeah, SSH and e-mail (and the occational gander at slashdot.org) is about all that I use. Dial-up is fine.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.
Most people spell it Ferraris, not Ferraries.
You could have had every line in the parent post but you blew it.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Not only better things to do with our time, but also better things to do with our money. W'ere a one income family with 2 small children. I have broadband access at work, so I know what it's like.
We've got dialup at $12 on top of our standard phone bill.
DSL is cheaper than cable modem and the cheapest I could find DSL is $40/month.
Thats a savings of $28/month ($336/ year)
Sure, that's not a ton of money saved, but we also don't have cable tv or eat out much and have only one car. It all adds up, especially when you are working to be debt free.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
People "satisfied" with dial-up have no idea that other services are available over broadband that can actually SAVE them money.
By that, I mean VOIP.
Voice Over Internet Protocol is the next "big thing" when it comes to broadband.
My cable modem + Vonage VOIP service is cheap. No dial-up ISP and no copper phone line means i'm actually SAVING money each month.
It's only a matter of time (and bandwidth) until everything comes over your IP connection - TV, voice, and data.
-ted
To have always on internet without blocking up your phone line? /shrugs
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Actually:
Q: Are you interested in switching to broadband?
A: Well, I haven't really considered it before. I mean, the costs are high, but it seems to be the rage these days, so I'd really be in-NO CARRIER
2003:
10,000 people surveyed (note: I'm making up numbers to make a point)
4,000 currently on dialup
2,400 don't care to switch to broadband
2004:
10,000 people surveyed
1,000 currently on dialup
600 don't care to switch
"Last year, 60%, this year 60%" doesn't mean much without know whether a lot of the people who didn't care to switch a year ago have already switched.
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