AOL to Raise Dialup Prices

United Bimmer writes "America Online has announced that it's going to raise the price on dialup users in an attempt to encourage them to upgrade to broadband. The new rates will near $26 a month, already drastically higher than the market norm for dialup access. This will bring the dialup prices to almost the exact same per month as broadband depending on your plan. However through this, they do still offer an unadvertised lower price for those who can't get or don't want broadband can request lower-priced plans, including an unadvertised offering of about $18 with a one-year commitment."

Comments

Holy Crap

[Matilda the Hun]

1. Give crappy dial-up service
2. Give crappy broadband service
3. Increase the price of your crappy dial-up service
4. Profit!!!! Or go out of business.

Another failed attempt to fill in step 3.

What about those who can't get broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

This will certainly chase away many of their current customers. I am unable to get DSL or Cable and Sattelite is way too expensive. If dialup prices are raised by AOL, I'm sure that many will switch to a less expensive ISP.

One more reason not to use AOL

[dnamaners]

As if the AOL customer service was reason enough to avoid it, now they add a whole new insult. Cell phone like plan gouging and hidden pricing with contractual commitments. Of course, on the upside, this will make people switch to a new provider via economic pressure. You have to love natural selection in progress.

Cool!

[rob_squared]

Wouldn't it be great if other companies did this?

Golf courses could make the hole smaller to encourage more people to buy Tiger Woods video games.

McDonalds could increase the amount of ice in drinks to make people buy bigger drinks.

Motion Picture creators could degrade the quality of videos to make people move to a new format.

Nike could make their shoes less comfortable and then sell replacement linings.

Is this funny or insightful?
It's probably both.

AOL takes away all incentive to keep customers.

[djkuhl]

AOL seems to be too confident in their content value. If a user does not value the exclusive content, they've officially announced a way to encourage users to switch instead of moving to broadband. AOL just officially lost all customers who wanted an easy way to connect to the internet to read web sites and check their e-mail. AOL needs to realize that upgrades and spiked costs end up in permanent account loss.

A good case for my point would be Dish Network. As they've started updating their systems for HD, they have given current users free updates for satellite dishes. Without this option, the users could easily re-evaluate their options and check out DirecTV. When Dish finally has a complete HD solution to all their customers, they could very well up the cost of their service and customers would have to accept the fact that they can't afford the initial cost of a new satellite service. Dish Network understands that you have to upgrade some options for free or you lose a permanent revenue source.

$ Criminal

[u16084]

Thats just criminal. AOL is no longer the premiere Content Provider. They will Join Qlink in the near future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QLink
Time Warner is now bundling AOL service with its High Speed service (to raise subscription rate for stock holders?) Everyone knows that you can get dial up as low as $9/month. Not to sound like a broken record, but BroadBand users tend to stear away from AOL - Cutting their own throat.

Re:This is ludicrous. Is it?

[xeoron]

I would bet that this is part of a larger plan, so people would be more willing to buy and download from the Net movies, music, games, etc. It is not just a push for high speed access, since TimeWarner has fingers into all kinds of media and entertainment .

Re:Uhh...

[XenoRyet]

AOL's customers aren't capable of comprehending such a thing, that is why they are still AOL users.

All kidding aside, AOL completly relies on the fact that their customer doesn't know a thing about how computers or the internet actualy work. Just look at their commercials: (talking about their spyblocker or some such) "Because with high speed internet, the intruders come at you faster!" I don't even know where to begin with that statement. But the AOL users just nod knowingly and install more bloatware.