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For years, the only thing that seemed to be holding back the quick adoption of high-speed Internet access was availability. Faster is better and people will always pay more for better, right? Not necessarily. A new study is showing that availability is no longer the problem; broadband access is out there, but people just don't think it's worth the cost.
I'll be surprised if rates for dialup Internet don't start increasing past the rates for broadband soon. The users have dwindled down to the hardcore folks who don't want to upgrade, and if they dwindle much lower, there won't be enough of them to make it worthwhile for providers to offer dialup at lower prices.
I had broadband for a year; between the cost and service issues it wasn't worth renewing the contract. Also, with a modem, I can react in human time when something tries to shove itself onto my hard drive, and stop the intrusion by pulling the phone jack out of the wall. If, as you say, the 56kb charges go up past the broadband levels, I'll reconsider.
I had to go to light DSL years ago because they just about choked the dialup to death around there where I live. Of the long list of numbers I had that I could use (dial up) out of about 10 numbers only 3 still worked.. So, I changed providers and got DSL light. MY daughter got the regular DSL at double the price of what the light was and hers didn't work no better than the light did. Now they offer fiber optic but the expense it not worth it to me because I am gone every other month so I would be paying for a years worth of service and only use it 6 month.. Now though, they are choking down the DSL, I think to force everybody to go to the more expensive fiber optic.
I had broadband for a year; between the cost and service issues it wasn't worth renewing the contract. Also, with a modem, I can react in human time when something tries to shove itself onto my hard drive, and stop the intrusion by pulling the phone jack out of the wall. If, as you say, the 56kb charges go up past the broadband levels, I'll reconsider.
With or without broadband you should have software in place to stop that type of intrusion for you. You won't see all of them and some are quick enough even on dial up to get past you.
One of my sisters and her husband are still using dialup (AOL). They couldn't qualify for DSL because they lived too far from the telco's central switching station. Their house has never had cable TV service, so they aren't about to get cable Internet service. If you ask me, though, I think my sister's husband is too frugal to get broadband Internet!
I completely agree with the original posters linked article- broadband, at this time, is too expensive in America. Most other nations pay less for more bandwidth than we do here in the US. Hopefully a new President will help change that by offering tax incentives to further drive down the cost of high-speed Internet access. The current administration has been too preoccupied with the War on Terror to really address domestic issues as our present economic malaise clearly exemplifies.
Our next President should act quickly to help drive down the cost of broadband connections. He should also promote the benefits to business of allowing employees to work from home whenever possible. This would have the dual effect of allowing the United States to remain competitive in the global exchange of ideas and at the same time lessen our dependence on foreign oil. More vehicles off the road would even help the environment.
What I don’t understand is some people’s apathy towards broadband. Ask any on-line gamer or database administrator, that works from home, how they feel about their high-speed Internet connection, and they’re likely to tell you that they’d rather lose a limb then give up broadband.
Not to get off on a political tangent (and I'm NOT a Bush guy), the President doesn't have the ability to create tax incentives for broadband and telecommuting, Congress does. All the President can do is push an idea.
I think the demographic that prefers dial-up contains a lot of older people - the same folks who wouldn't give up their land-line phone if they didn't need it for internet access. I know I was paying 22 a month for AOL and another 25 for a phone about ten years ago, and I can get cable internet for less than that now. But the older computer user is less likely to be watching video, hopping on MySpace, playing games, using bittorrent, or doing a lot of other things online that require high bandwidth. If all you're doing is reading news websites and checking email, broadband isn't as big of a deal.
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Economics of Broadband
