Dial-Up Users "Don't Want Broadband" 593
Barence writes "The majority of dial-up Internet users say they don't want to upgrade their connection to broadband, according to a new study in the US. The Pew Internet & American Life research found that 62% of dial-up users had no interest in upgrading to a high-speed connection." (CNN is carrying the AP's story on the study, too.)
Odin84gk (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, 81% of Americans on Dial-up would like to switch to high speed internet if the price was right...
Nothing to see here... Move along...
$12 a month versus $50 a month (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are probably your mothers and fathers who aren't particularly into computers. If they're just checking e-mail and maybe a little web surfing on a Pentium II with 128MB of memory, it's hard to argue that they should pay $50 a month for broadband.
I hated paying $50 a month for cable internet even though I used the hell out of it. It just doesn't seem like a reasonable price.
Majority (Score:4, Insightful)
Majority my ass, when did 1/5th become a majority.
Quite the misleading headline.
Costs not worth it to some people (Score:5, Insightful)
My father said the same thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
...until one of his kids started sending videos of his grandchildren to him, along with the high MP pictures. Add in the gallery (Menalto's Gallery) that I run that hosts lots of family pictures. He also likes to view videos from humoron and other sites of that nature, and dialup just wasn't working for him.
I tried to convince him for at least a couple years that he should get cable or DSL, but he refused to because he either didn't want to pay the up-front costs, or he hated the company (or a combination). He finally got a taste of higher-than-dialup speed at a friends house, bit the bullet, and finally signed up for himself.
Many of these people are probably in the same boat. They just simply don't know what they are missing out on, and that's fine. That means they're either out in their community, or watching TV, etc. I just have a feeling that many of these folks would actually put a higher speed connection to use if they were introduced to all the stuff they could be using it for.
I know for a fact that one of the driving features for my father getting his DSL was that he was able to talk to my deployed brother via the internet far more cheaply than phone calls were. I wonder how many of that 62% have deployed children/family members that they'd like to be able to talk to more often?
Re:Grandma Speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Your grandmother is a wise woman who has better things to worry about.
Cheers
If they are being sold on speed... (Score:5, Insightful)
... I'm not too surprised.
The most important difference, as far as I'm concerned is not in speed, but in the always-on nature of the connection.
For a long time my (80-something) parents were quite happy with dial-up. And they basically didn't use the Net. To access the Internet they had to run a phone extension lead across the room. They explained they didn't use the Internet much, and I simply said, "and you wouldn't use electricity much if every time you needed to turn on a light you had to go out to the garage, start up a generator and then run a cable in through the window".
In the end they simply decided that they didn't want to be left behind by the times. They got wireless, I set them up with a Mac (yes, I know but the Dock is a great thing it you only ever need 4 applications) and they never looked back. They're Skyping, Googling, the works.
Exactly how you sell the way that the online experience changes when you are always on is slightly problematic, but it's key. People liek my parents really didn't care if the Web page opened twice as fast.
They have never even used high-speed (Score:5, Insightful)
The few dial-up users I knew a few years ago didn't realize how big the difference was. They assumed that if it took 2 minutes to get a page on dial-up, it would be one minute or 30 seconds on high-speed internet. They equated high-speed internet to upgrading a computer. It's prettier and faster, but it is really the same thing. And they were patient.
That changed when they saw my laptop. Sometimes I would click a link and the page would load and they didn't even register that it happened. dial-up -vs- high-speed is like reading a book through a telescope a mile away -vs- reading it up close. And once you go there you can never go back. So I suspect most of those dial-up users who are left just have never seen the alternative.
Re:$12 a month versus $50 a month (Score:4, Insightful)
Yah but if they're like my parents they paid $20 a month for dialup and $20 a month for a second landline. Cellphones have pretty much negated the need for this, but some families may want to keep their landline unlocked, and in that case broadband isn't that much more expensive.
Frankly, I'd be OK with a lower speed connection (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I'd be OK with a lower speed connection, for a lower price, too. Say, 768kbps down for $15 a month would work just fine for me at home. Instead I pay $45 a month for 6mbps that I don't really need.
Re:Majority (Score:3, Insightful)
When asked what it would take to tempt them to switch, 35% said the price of broadband would have to fall, while almost a fifth said that nothing would tempt them to upgrade, suggesting many die-hard dial-up users simply don't see the need for the higher speeds that are available.
So most want faster internet but cannot afford it, while approximately 1/5th do not want faster internet.
Re:Odin84gk (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news, 81% of Americans on Dial-up would like to switch to high speed internet if the price was right...
Or, you know, if there were actually any high-speed internet services available in the area.
Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
i really do not get this whole idea that the US sucks because of lack of broad band adaptation. I mean, I have broadband, and it's nice for what i do. But do my parents need it? no dialup would be fine for them. Do my sisters need it? no. You can certainly browse the web and send/recieve email on dialup, so I really don't get this obsession over it. (by obsession i mean I see these articles frequently on /. for some reason.)
Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
have them visit www.ford.com, or any other automotive retailer's website.
the flash alone will suck down megs of data on something that is barely viewable with broad band is becoming the normal.
a lot of car sites have so much flash you would think the police would catch on and arrest the serial flashers.
More Than The Speed (Score:3, Insightful)
In a related story, most users don't worry about (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of my (non tech-savvy) friends don't care if their machine is botted, so long as it plays GTA x okay. I have to explain (usually one-on-one) why they're being harmed, even if they never see a slowdown on their desktop or have to deal with law enforcement. I have to explain why letting spambots run on their boxes is bad, even if they never check their own e-mail (and thus never see spam).
Good luck explaining to Grandma and Grandpa why they should pony up an extra thirty-odd dollars per month or more just to get their e-mail a little faster and with one or two less mouse clicks. Incidentally, has anybody here considered that people who are satisfied with dialup are doing the rest of us a favor? Likely as not, they're not sophisticated users and are the ones most likely to be running infected systems - best to relegate them to the list of "connects occasionally for limited uses". My greatest nightmare is already coming true - millions of desktops running Windows with inadequate protection persistently connected to the internet via a high-speed connection.
Frankly, they are smarter than most of us (Score:5, Insightful)
because the high speed net isn't really doing anything for the majority of people except separating them from their money.
Look, my grand parents and my parents to a similar degree are from a more responsible generation. They didn't burden themselves down with so many monthlies that marketing gurus have dreamed up to separate us from our money. I can't count the number of people I know who scrape by but refuse to acknowledge how they drain their income relentlessly through monthlies. Its only $1 dollar a day! Its only 1.49 a day! Its just $100 a month.
Sheesh. These same people wonder why I can drive and own a new car when I want it. They don't understand the magic of being able to buy something I want when I want it for CASH. I don't look at each month as a routine of $30 here, $50 there, and $100 there, and having to do with X minus a whole lot of Ys.
For the most part with current offerings all high speed internet does is satisfy our impatience. There really isn't that much different to the net for many of us that wasn't there a few years ago. A lot people justify it by "well I might want to do X" and such. Words to make a marketer's ears perk and for them salivate over.
Hell if anything this survey tells me there are many Americans with a real life. Call them hicks, backwards trolls, whatever, I know many do just so they can justify their spending money like it comes from trees. It certainly makes it easier to pass these people off as ignorant but at the end of day who is happier?
Re:Odin84gk (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary: "19 percent say nothing would persuade them to upgrade"
In other news, 81% of Americans on Dial-up would like to switch to high speed internet if the price was right...
Nothing to see here... Move along...
Except the US doesn't get "right" prices since the (wide) territory has been split between the providers which have a de facto local monopoly and can set the prices as they see fit.
Broadband provider is X for $Z. If you aren't happy with that, unless you're in a metropolitan area, the alternative is a POTS modem. In Europe/Asia, in most locations you actually have a choice for at least ADSL2+ providers (up to roughly 22Mbps depending on how far you are from the local hub), and nowadays fibre with typically 50Mbps+ *for the same price* (in France you get *at least* 50Mbps with fibre for about 30 € per month, whis is about, what, $50, $55 ?).
There is a category of users that only use the network to send email. You can do that over a 2.4K modem. I've run a 5 person network over a 9.6K modem with a Linux dial on demand box back when...
Actually, I was part of the tech people building one of the first public ISP in Europe over a *64K* line. For about 9000 subscribers who opted to use the Internet facility (we already had Internet -- among others -- mail gateways for ages). And at the time it was plenty. In the early 90s I downloaded my Linux floppy images on that link (several times even, when you wrote 30 floppies, some were bound to be bad).
Anyway, You and I would have trouble with a modem link (my offsite backups would become very complicated for example), but if all you use is email and a few web pages ? Should work like a charm (maybe adblock would be handy nowadays though).
Oh and I used to check my mail with nothing but a VT100 and a modem. Get off my lawn (waves walker and falls over).
Re:Odin84gk (Score:1, Insightful)
But did the survey offer the answer of "I would upgrade if [insert ISP] weren't a total douche"? My reasons for still being on dial-up are the following in no particular order:
1) I pay $8 a month. Cheapest I can get anything faster is >$40-$80 depending on if I believe the ads, and even those are usually short lived promos.
2) Comcast is evil. Verizon is more evil. etc. etc. Why would I support or even trust these guys? Illegal wiretapping anyone? Throttled connections? Customer service hold times of more than an hour? False advertising, unlimited means UNLIMITED, not 8 hours a day!!!
3) Every few months I get a telemarketer from my phone company asking if I want DSL. After I say "Yes Please!" they run their little check and remember that DSL isn't offered in my area... idiots. :(
So I'll keep my slow and cheap dial-up connection thankyouverymuch.
Pleeeeease keep them on dial up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dialup just does not support botting, so it is better to leave them on dialup.
Re:I was thinking the same thing (Score:2, Insightful)
To this day, about the only thing that crushes dialup are DVD downloads, and some dev apps and games that have become as big as DVDs.
YouTube? Anything with flash/java/shockwave (back in the day)/lots of pictures/etc? How about MySpace profiles, facebook profiles, ... the list goes on. Heck, gMail was so much faster than Hotmail on dialup, but even gMail took a minute or two to load up-front.
I remember downloading the newest version of Netscape Navigator on dial-up ages ago... it took hours and god forbid anyone messed with the phone because the download wouldn't resume back then. (Download managers existed, sure, but it took so long to download any kind of software that it wasn't worth the time and trouble to find one and download it. Ah, the irony.)
Duh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
But why does that bother you? Who cares if someone has a slow connection, or even no connection? The world got along just fine (actually, from evidence, a lot better) without everyone having an instant connection to everyone else.
And get off my lawn!
Brett
Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately for the spammers, those unpatched systems don't need much bandwidth to send lots of two line text-only spam.
Re:Frankly, they are smarter than most of us (Score:2, Insightful)
"For just $3000 down, and $350 a month, you can drive off in this BRAND NEW CAR with all these BRAND NEW AWESOME NEW DOOHICKEYS and you will totally pick up all the chicks at the club in your blingin' new ride!"
And yeah, it works. And these are the same guys that come back in a year with negative equity (owing more on the car than what the car is worth). and TRADE IT IN AGAIN for yet another new car, increasing their payments, just because they all want the blingiest, bestest, shiniest new thing.
I remember one young couple in particular - her with the newest Coach bag, him in his Ed Hardy designer threads. They traded in their 6-month-old Altima for... another Altima, except with a Navigation system. With their mediocre credit, and the fact that they still owed approximately $20,000 on their Altima (which we took as a trade-in for $16,000, and rolled over their negative equity), they ended up costing themselves $50,000 for a frikkin' Nissan Altima. All for a stupid Navigation system... when they could've gone to Best Buy and bought themselves a Garmin navigation system for $200.
Dialup users would be people like my parents, holding onto 15+ year old cars because "it runs just fine!" Broadband isn't a necessity for life any more than having a new car is.
Re:Grandma Speed (Score:4, Insightful)
Why, old people porn, of course. :-P
But, in all seriousness, start sending them daily links to videos or photo albums of the youngest of grandchildren, and they'll suddenly discover why they might care to have faster speeds.
I will go out on a limb and say that at least some grandparents have switched for broadband for exactly that reason. "Mac: $900. Broadband connection: $50. Video conferencing story time with the grand kids: fucking priceless".
Cheers
Re:$12 a month versus $50 a month (Score:2, Insightful)
My parents and 4 brothers would sit on the computer all day long, playing online poker and looking at eBay for things they couldn't afford. Any time anyone would try to call, they'd get a busy signal.
The 'rents finally broke down and got phone-company voicemail... which is great, except no one picks up the phone to check the voicemail after they're done surfing. Apparently behavioral modification is only for dogs.
Re:Grandma Speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Blowjobs. Beer. Breasts (real ones, mind you, not those digital ones). Really good food. Vacations without the internet. Fast cars. Easy women.
You could actually partake in some of human culture as well.
His grandmother figured it out. :-P
Cheers
Reason to not switch (Score:2, Insightful)
I have dial-up, even though the local telco offers DSL. I'm not switching. I won't do any more business with the local telco than I must (basic land-line service). Dial-up used to be OK, typical dial-up. By coincidence, then the local telco started offering DSL, the dial-up started having major problems. The problems have continued for over a year. It takes, on average about 10 minutes to get a connection to the dial-up ISP, the telco wire-taps the line and sabotages the connection to the ISP. I expect to take 20 minutes to an hour to get a reliable connection. Downloading patches is difficult. In addition, the terms and conditions of the DSL offering (which I actually read) are that the telco still gets paid even when they provide no service at all. I've talked to the telco, the Pennsylvania Attorney General and the BBB. Nothing has helped so far. I see no reason to switch. As the telco successfully wiretaps my phone connection and sabotages my current service, and the DSL t&c that insist on being paid despite providing no service, then it is reasonable to expect that the telco will provide as close to no service as possible. Thus there is no inducement to switch to faux-broadband.
Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus they think they will lose their AOL homepage and email...
Re:Pleeeeease keep them on dial up! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why it works so well. This is a security model that anyone can understand and implement. Firewalls, NAT and other alphabet soup is just too much for many/most people to handle. And if they do get botted they get annoyed by the thing interfering with the phone so they have to do something about it.... like fix the problem or unplug.
Re:Odin84gk (Score:3, Insightful)
19% can't get broadband.
35% say the price is too high.
14% say they would not switch, regardless.
If the prices adjusted downwards, that 35% group of price-objectors would vanish, leaving only 33% of the total who still have dial-up only either being stuck with it or being Luddites who refuse to switch over.
Once the 19% of those who can't get broadband CAN get it, how many of them would switch? The assumption is all of them would, because otherwise, they would be in the "would not switch" category.
That leaves only the 14% who still use dial telephones and who drive Packards - and I do NOT mean Packard Bells!
Re:Odin84gk (Score:2, Insightful)
Even in metro areas, there isn't much choice. Cable vs. DSL is still basically it... from your monopoly cable company or monopoly phone company. There are fringe alternatives like cellular data (sprint/nextel, verizon, at&t), but they tend to be available where ever there's cell coverage, and it's both expensive and slow. Clearwire has some coverage in Raleigh, NC, but it's still slower than the Big Two, and more expensive. If I were in Durham, I'd have FiOS -- but I'm 12 miles too far east.
We USED to have some competition in the DSL market, but access to the last mile (read: Bellsouth's greed) killed pretty much all of them. Today, Covad still runs a few DSLAMs, but I don't think they have any in NC anymore. BTI (ITC^Deltacom) may still have DSLAMs around, but they were business priced to begin with (SDSL and IDSL.) Bellsouth makes it very expensive to put equipment in their COs -- by law they're required to allow it, but it's otherwise unregulated. And there's no such requirement for "remote offices".
Re:Pleeeeease keep them on dial up! (Score:2, Insightful)
Second of all, these are the people that have to learn, and it's going to hurt everyone for a little bit while they learn to lock their doors, so to speak. Patching OSs is going to require more and more bandwidth to accomplish, and they're just not going to patch their stuff before they disconnect their modem to call someone.
Third, it's economically inefficient. People who have to wait 15 minutes to work their way through some flash to buy something aren't going to do that, they're just going to hop in their car, burn some gas, pollute the air, and buy it elsewhere. At least when you have something shipped, you have someone driving one vehicle instead of 8 people driving 8 personal vehicles.
These people just need to learn to use the web correctly. That's really all it is. If someone can learn to drive a car without killing pedestrians, they can learn to do basic maintenance in order to keep their computer running and not being infected by botnets. Maybe a required class should be given by stores that sell computers to first time buyers, I don't know. Maybe a license or certificate for passing basic computer security and maintenance, like with firearms. Computers can be used to do some pretty bad things that can hurt the owner or someone else by accidental disclosure of personal info, phishing, whatever. But that's not my call.
Re:Don't believe Time Warner commercials (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nooo! (Score:4, Insightful)
People do want health care, they just don't want to pay for it until they get sick at which case they go to the emergency room and we end up paying for them anyway. Saying that there are people who actually prefer not being able to go to a doctor is ridiculous.
Re:We know better, what's good for them, don't we? (Score:3, Insightful)
You forgot to list people wanting to:
Simply a case of being content (Score:3, Insightful)
My uncle fell into this category. For years he would happily log into his ISP, check his stocks, read emails, the usual operations. Time after time, I explained that for just about the same price he could have a MUCH faster Internet. He would constantly reply with "it's ok, I'm patient and this works." Usually, I would retort this by saying that his patients was admirable and a good thing, but simply not necessary.
Until one day he moved to a new community which had all the houses pre-setup with cable modems.
In fact, at the new community, broadband was cheaper since it was just "part of the deal."
Since then, I haven't heard the end of "how much faster his computer is now." He absolutely loves it and says he will never go back to dial-up.
Realistically, I think most broadband holdouts fit into this description. Hesitant to change, content and generally patient with the shortcoming they have. But if they had the opportunity to try broadband for an extended period of time, I think most reasonable people would agree it's just better.
62% of dial up users are ignorant (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting fallacy.
I think it's poisoning the well, but I can't be sure.
If I believe we should have nationalized health care like a civilized country, suddenly I am one of 'them' regardless of the merits of the conversation.
Re:Nooo! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you consider 3 inches "long" doesn't make it so. I'm glad you don't listen to the FCC. I'm happy for you, really. But the vast majority of people who use the Internet realize that 512Kbps isn't really broadband. A half megabit, while faster than dialup, and faster than other options you have, is still not "broadband". Broadband shouldn't be defined by the fastest thing available to a person, it should be defined as a baseline that everyone can agree on. The FCC's number is the closest thing to that that we have.
Re:Nooo! (Score:3, Insightful)
what makes you think people still stuck in the dialup days run software updates? Most of them probably don't know their computer account's password.
I ran into one of those just yesterday. Has a five year old computer and has never ran updates. Went to do so and he had no idea his account had a password on it. So now we get to fight that later.
Re:Nooo! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, loss of their email address IS a big factor for people upgrading from dialup. They don't realize what the benefits are, but can very easily recognize the chaos that's going to cause.
What we need is a "universal portability" thing for email like we have for telephone numbers. (but I call it GMail)
Re:"Are we there yet?" (Score:3, Insightful)