Dial-Up Users "Don't Want Broadband"

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.)

Nooo!

We must convert the dial-up heathens!

Send more broadband missionaries!

Re:Nooo!

I thought that this was the reason that most slashdotters don't RTFA. At least that's my reasoning :P

Re:Nooo!

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!

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.

Re:Nooo!

I mean, I have broadband, and it's nice for what i do. But do my parents need it?

My mom's on dialup (80 yrs old), my dad (77 yrs ols) doesn't even have a computer in his house (they got divorced the year I was married).

My friend Ralph (86 yrs old) doesn't have a computer, but he doesn't need one; he has hookers. And blackjack.

But he forgets the blackjack.

Obligatory

We must convert the dial-up heathens

Why should I change? My dialup connection works fine so long as noone picks up th# $% @#$#%)G$%$#^NO CARRIER

Odin84gk

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...

Re:Odin84gk

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).

$12 a month versus $50 a month

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.

Re:$12 a month versus $50 a month

$50/month?

Sucker! I only pay $49.95.

Frankly, they are smarter than most of us

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?

Grandma Speed

My grandmother refuses to upgrade to broadband even though it's an extra $5/mo because she's used it at my house and it loads too fast. She says that her internet at home is "perfect Grandma speed", and us "young-uns with fresh brains can handle the zip of that fast stuff."

Re:Grandma Speed

She says that her internet at home is "perfect Grandma speed", and us "young-uns with fresh brains can handle the zip of that fast stuff."

Your grandmother is a wise woman who has better things to worry about.

Cheers

Costs not worth it to some people

I can see where people look at the $10/month they pay for dialup ($120 a year) and compare it to the cost of broadband; cable internet in my area is at least $45/month ($540 a year, or add $10/month on top if you don't have cable TV service!) so they would pay an extra $420 a year to have the same access, but faster.. Come to think of it, thats kind of depressing that I pay that much a year for internet! If I was living on a low fixed income, cable and internet would be among the lowest priorities. Some of you will laugh at me, and call me a phony geek, but have you ever gone a week eating only 1 cup of nooldes a day because you couldn't afford to eat? I have, it changes your priorities pretty quickly!

Re:Costs not worth it to some people

Don't laugh, $420 is a tank of gas.

My father said the same thing...

...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?

If they are being sold on speed...

... 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

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:They have never even used high-speed

dial-up -vs- high-speed is like reading a book through a telescope a mile away -vs- reading it up close.

That's silly. Sure, you need to walk a mile to turn the page, but then you're already there and the rest of the experience is the same.

Dial-up -vs- high-speed is like reading a book with only one word printed on each page -vs- reading a porno mag with embedded videos on each page.

I'm one of those

I've been sticking with dial-up service because high speed Internet's too much money for me. It's an added monthly fee that I just don't need. I can make do with dial-up. Turn off graphics and Flash and most web pages load just fine on a 56K dial-up connection. I just download patches for my Mac while I'm at work. I don't have a cell phone or cable TV either. I think I was just raised frugally.

Frankly, I'd be OK with a lower speed connection

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.

Some people just get set in their ways

I've have a grandmother who would still be using her 1969 Philco black and white TV if it hadn't broken at some point. Some people just get to a point in their life where they get used to doing things the way they've been used to doing them for a long time. And those people resist change with a surprising tenacity.

It's the same phenomenon that leaves me shaking my head every time they interview some laid-off Detroit autoworker who says something like "This is what I've done my whole life. What am I going to do now?" The obvious questions would be "Good Lord man, you didn't see this coming?" and "Why didn't you get some training or find a field with a brighter future in the last few decades?" Sometimes you just get used to doing something one way, and are lethargic about changing.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks, you just have to kick him in the ass sometimes to get him out of his rut.

My 1200bps modem works just fine for me

BTW, first post!

Re:Some people don't have a choice

I live in a rural aria

I'm guessing you're an Opera user.

Re:Need

If we could dump all the extra garbage on most webpages, we could conserve a lot of bandwidth as it is.

Edit -> Preferences -> Content

Untick load images automatically.
Untick enable Javascript.
Untick enable Java.

Edit -> Preferences -> Applications

Remove any you don't like.

HTH