Earthlink Trying to Keep Dial-Up Customers

[exfileme]

Believe it or not, there are still customers out there somewhere accessing the Internet via a 56K modem.These subscribers normally reside in rural areas and other locations where broadband doesn't--or simply can't--access. That's where ISPs such as Eart

Earthlink Trying to Keep Dial-Up Customers : Read more

 

[frozenlead]

I don't even know what to say to this.

 

[apache_lives]

56k is the work of satan

 

[IronRyan21]

What would happen to me if I used a 56k Connection while writing this post?

 

[fulle]

LOL@Ryan. He's poor!

 

[JonathanDeane]

I remember people being jealous of me because I got a 56K modem before them (they where new at the time...) Of course the Internet was different back then a ton less graphics and very little animated junk and sound consisted of mostly midi crap (thank god thats mostly gone) I know a lot of people still use dial up but I honestly feel sorry for them these days, some sites are still great to use but they must die of waiting for youtube to load or myspace.

Ahhh the days of Dial up and Napster those where the days lol

 

[jhansonxi]

Folks out in the country still use dial-up. Its enough for non-Flash web browsing and email (w/o picture attachments). At $10USD/month it is a lot cheaper than HughesNet. Firefox with Adblock makes it bearable.

 

[rawoysters]

Last time they did this was when they reduced the graphics quality to a minumum and then claimed their dial up was faster. 56K is 56K, you can't get anymore out of it without sacrificing something.

 

[jdog2076]

The picture is hilarious

 

[nukemaster]

Its even worse for them with all the 3G usb sticks from all the cell phone companies. But hey, Dial ups days are numbered. I remember going to 33.6 to 56....it was great

 

[eklipz330]

ok i am nnot ying when i say this

i met a girl in my college recently... and she told me she had dialup!

I WAS LIKE WHAT?! HOLY SHIT I KNOW SOMEONE WITH DIALUP

i live in new york city...! it was one of the most surprising things i've ever heard, and trust me, i hear alotta garbage.

oh, and she told me it still makes that ringing sound when connecting

 

[liemfukliang]

I BELIEVE!!! Especially if you live in Indonesia. With "the new and improved" Real Telkomsel Flash "HSDPA" Unlimited that is limited is only give you 6 KB/s at 6 BIGMAC PRICE for a month. I am using it now and it is really paint in the ash. Event opening simple page in Tomshardware in print mode or mobile review static old html is really really super long. I only hope the 4G there is strict indicator mode that will only display 4G if the speed is really 4G, not the wave mode. If not then I believe Indonesia Internet Flagship Operator Telkomsel will take advantage of this as now to diplay full bar signal HSDPA with only 6 KB/s speed (.

 

[kelfen]

talk about going to the dino ages!

 

[Guest]

56k is still out there folks, a friend of mine is currently stuck with it. He lives outside a rural town and only has old-school telephone wires running to his house and neither verizon or comcast (the 2 main local suppliers) are willing to upgrade the system in his neck of the woods as they claim there "isn't enough demand in his area". I'd have to call BS on that statement, however he's stuck with dialup or expensive satellite service.

Sad when you can pull up 3G on your phone, yet you can't access fast internet. Anyway, I bet the 56k market is still kicking when comes to people stranded in the middle of nowhere.

 

[megamanx00]

Allow the City wide Wi-Fi. Stupid FCC.

 

[anamaniac]

I remember my computer from only 8 years ago...
I wish I had 56kB/s, my net was only 16-24kB/s...

 

[liemfukliang]

It is ok if we in the rural. But I am in the near second flasgship Indonesia bigest City Surabaya. So?

 

[eccentric909]

[citation][nom]SamL421[/nom]Sad when you can pull up 3G on your phone, yet you can't access fast internet. Anyway, I bet the 56k market is still kicking when comes to people stranded in the middle of nowhere.[/citation]

If you can pull up 3G on your phone in your area, yet can't get broadband via Cable or DSL, then those little USB mobile broadband devices and at least enjoy speeds that are faster than 56K dial-up.

----

14 years ago I ran a little internet service which held 80 concurrent connections. However, the company I worked (a Hearst newspaper) for was so cheap that instead of using a rack mount modem bank, we used external modems. Cardinal 28.8s to be exact. I also remember when 33.6 hit the scene and had to flash all 80 external modems from 28.8 to 33.6. I had to do them each individually. The one other tech and I brought in our home pcs so we could run the flash program with one of the servers, one of the terminals and both our computers. Suffice to say it took us a good 12 or more hours to flash all of the modems. Less than a year later I got a job at a fortune 50 company in their network security department and never looked back.

The nice thing about working at the ISP, was that I had access to 2 T1s. The downside was that when I went home at night, I couldn't stand to surf the net. So much so, that I actually purchased a 128k ISDN line. While it was running me about $100 or more a month, at the time it was well worth it. I actually ended up talking a neighbor into splitting the costs with me and networked his house with my connection as well.

Well, that was all a bit off-topic, but unfortunately reading about dial-up in the article brought back some "fun" memories.

 

[fooldog01]

It really sucks. I still had dialup until about 2 years ago. It was one of those things where I could literally hit a golf ball to someone's house that DID have broadband but they were on Windstream lines and I had ATT. I really feel for anyone still stuck with it.

 

[blackened144]

I havent heard the connection sound of a modem in about 10 years.. But my friend at work just set that as his new ringtone, so it brought back some frightful memories of watching the ANSI graphics on a local BBS load up one character at a time on my friend 300baud modem..