Most dial-up users don't want to upgrade their connections
By Joshua Fruhlinger 
posted Jul 4th 2008 5:41PM
posted Jul 4th 2008 5:41PM
So here's a bit of brilliant statistics work for you: The Pew Internet & American Life research project has determined after endless polling and number crunching that 62 percent of American dial-up users have no interest in upgrading their connections to something a bit more peppy. In fact, only 14 percent of them would upgrade if they could. They cite high prices, barrier to entry, and -- ooh, is Survivor on? We look at it this way: if you're not already on broadband with the multitude of options, and you can get broadband (i.e. you're not stranded out in the wilderness) in one way shape or form, you probably just don't really care, and we can make fun of you because you're not reading this post anyway.[Via Switched]
Not surprising, really.
Where i come from it only cost ten dollars more to have mid-grade 780-1000kbps from dial-up, but then again ten dollars will almost get you a couple gallons of gas. lol
most homes would benefit from ISDN, solid 128KB and be just fine. In real world use that's like 4x dial-up because lines are so bad. Most pages are geared for this crowd. it's fact enough to browse quickly, even download a CD work of info in a reasonable time, but not enough for those bandwidth hogging things like downloading DVDS, etc. Telcos could make a killing if they'd have done this years ago rather than the "unlimited" DSL they're loosing their asses on.
Im 15 and ive had dialup since forever, sure its ok for loading webpages and e-mail, but if i want watch a funny youtube video i have to wait hrs for it too load, so hope its upgraded soon cuz i dont howmuch longer i can dela with dial-up since its 2008 now
poor dial up users , it sucked in the 90s I can't imagine trying to use it now. Their is a price difference from dialup to broadband , not worth it for some users. But for me I've been despeate since the 90s I even had dual dialup and thought about isdn back in the day. Cable is plenty fast for me, 10 legs down 1 up no complaints at the moment
10 legs?
l2type ftw!
sorry tried to type megs but i was on the iphone and it insists on spelling everything the opposite of what i want
olol, iphone created a new term for broadbandspeed, legs, it's catchy.
Whenever I try to type summer it comes out as stoner instead...
Seriously, last time I used dial-up I was shocked to find most sites were practically unusable because they were designed with a reasonable amount of bandwidth in mind.
56k is just not enough for todays internet!
Forgot to add, bandwidth capped broadband is the same price as dial-up here now, and since if they don't use a lot of bandwidth anyway it can't hurt to upgrade. The only possible reason I can see for someone to still be on it is they can't get broadband! Anything else is lunacy!
My dad upgraded to DSL a week ago. It's a good thing I only have to go to his house every other weekend. :D
Man, i had to force my grandma into getting high speed... lol her AOL was killin me whenever I'd come to fix it
So you forced your grandmother to pay for something more expensive that she does not need so it's easier for you? Wow, you're a real piece of work. Why not have her go with a better dial-up prodiver instead?
that's pretty hilarious because my grandmother is actually still on dial-up aol and doesn't seem to want to do anything about it despite my entire family trying to convince her to change
Christ, I had a similar conversation with my grandmother the other month. Questions like "Why do you need it that fast?" just left me flabbergasted.
You all don't want her to blow through your inheritance, now do ya? ;)
Don't worry, when you get old and your sons or grandchildren come to you telling you to upgrade to another thing..you are gonna be stubborn and say that you are not abandoning your adsl..or cable..or whatever you are using now.
I can't live without my 6 megs, but on the otherhand my girlfriend who pretty much just uses the PC as an "email machine" would be fine with dial up.
Kinda depends on what you use the net for I guess.
Free wifi usually does the trick if your internet use is very light. And quicker, and you get out of the house too.
I'd rather do without net than have to go back to dialup....and that's a fact!!!
I agree completey. Not worth the effort. Especially after being spoiled on a T3 connection back in college!!!
If you have more than one computer in the house it doesn't make any sense to have dial-up. I guess that's one reason I haven't had it for several years.
Where did my comment go?
Comment delay? Fourth dimension? Or Engadget glitching?
Oh well. Who cares?
well by looking at your avatar i say it got sucked down a worm hole : D
I agree, not surprising at all. I wonder if dial-up is as awful as it was 10 years ago? I can't imagine AOL still has busy-signal problems...
I've gotta upgrade my Internet speed. iPlayer is getting pwned by my crap 2mb narrowband.
The speeds in dial up I never found to be the issue it's the inability to multitask that makes it inferior to broadband in my eyes. For instance I have a Youtube video playing, 3 Endgadget pages, Steam and MSN open at the moment which I couldn't do with dial up.
*hugs router*
Most dial up users have stolen cable and don't want that to go away.
Oh please, what a completely stupid thing to say!
Think BEFORE typing next time!
What's........wrong.........with.........the...........speed..........of..........dial..........up?
I..........mean..........who.........could........ever.........need.........to......
.....download.........something.........so........fast?
I still have dial-up at home. I live in the country and commute in (I work IT for John Deere).
You all are used to the city. Get out into the country, and where there aren't lines you'd have to pay to have them put in. So, I *could* get broadband or cable, but the installation fees would be in the thousands.
Someday I'm sure I will ... but ... 'til then ... adblock speeds things up a lot.
A real "High Tech" Red Neck would have broadband!
FAIL!
56k is very high tech for rednecks, most of them don't even know what the internet is.
Do you get 3g service in your area, maybe you should get a 3g smartphone and tether it to your computer. Just a thought.
Or even a 3g broadband card..
Satalite internet bro... i'm with you on the being caught in the stix i aint had internet ever in my life, less i used a friends.
This misguided poll never asked if users had no reason to upgrade, and no benefit over their dial-up.
Because seriously, why would Grandma need broadband to check her e-mail?
Based on this glaring omission, it's nice to see them jump to conclusions, somehow trying to understand.
Grandma might need broadband to check her email if all her friends have broadband, and keep insisting on sending 5 to 10MB attachments. When you're grandma's age, you're not going to go ditching your friends just cause they forget you have dialup and keep sending emails too huge to download. After a while, it's easier to get broadband so you can actually read those emails.
Also, grandma might not realize how nice broadband can be if she's never tried it.
Maybe she doesn't want to sit at the computer for five hours to view a couple pictures of her grandchildren that were e-mailed to her.
the price difference where i live from dial-up to basic DSL is $5 a month, not usually enough to make some one file for bankrupcy
Here here!
See what engadget should have done was upload this article in full HD video, or as a series of uncompressed, 10MP JPEG files.
hahahahaaha.
+1
So my grandma would wait 'till she's dead to view all of that?
Lol I would bring my 10 megs download, 1 megs upload internet over there and save her a few months or maybe years of her life.
I still can not get broad band. My city just of FIOS over a year ago. Just done the street they have a Comcast High Speed But my street is no for any service. The only reason I don't have acess to high speed is the phone company and cable company are too cheep to run a line down my street. You can all stop bashing on dial up user some of use don't have a choice and wished we did.
Call and tell them they suck.
Then maybe you might have a chance of getting high speed.
Actually, every dial-up user has a choice. You might want to look into satellite internet; it's not FAST, per-se (about 500k last time I checked?), but it sure beats the sh1t out of dial up.
Have you SEEN the cost of satellite? It is CRAZY!
Dial up? PFFFT N00BS
Multitude of options?? I have two - AT&T and Comcast.
And they know it.
I was still reading engadget before i got broadband.
And there are also people on dialup who don't realize how much a difference broadband really makes. I had relatives on dialup who kept insisting they didn't want or need broadband (they also lived in the country where there was no broadband for the longest time).
But I eventually talked them into getting broadband, and NOW they like it. I have to wonder how many of the people in this survey are like that: they don't want broadband because they don't realize how different it can be.
What is this "dial-up"?
Ah, kids these days. You're having it so good in 2008.
Unless you're less than 13 years old (which I don't think you are if you're reading Engadget) You probably remember dialup. I'm 15 (WHOAH BIG DIFFERENCE!!!!1!!one) and I had Dialup in my house from '96 to 2001 when my father moved out, and my mother moved to another place (yay divorce). My father had Dial Up well into 2003, and my mother had Cable Broadband from 2002 on. Right now we're on I think a 25mbps connection. My father has a 50mbps connection now.
But hey, in a few years we'll all be talking about the idiots still on those "puny" 50mbps connections.
Those people with dial-up should try broadband for 1 month. Never going back. One time I got stuck with dial-up - what a pain. Also I have dial-up speed with my phone (T-Mobile) - that sucks.
Come on people, it is like $10 a month difference ! 2.5g of gas.
Not to mention bittorrent or emule :)
If they are just getting the hang of what broadband means then I would highly think bittorrent is a little too far ahead of them.
PEW / INTERNET?
PEW PEW :O
i was surprised it took that long for someone to make that comment...
If you don't have broadband (even the lowest entry version) yet then chances are you aren't to excited about upgrading. However, one thing that I am wondering is if these dial-up users even know what their missing. Sure e-mail works fine over 56kb, but the internet is always evolving and features are being announced left and right. I wonder if most would even upgrade if the price dropped to equal dial-up.
My DSL still costs less than the last dial up account I had.
I wanted broadband for years. I had dial up until 2005 :(
I live in the boonies, and it wasn't until 2005, broadband was offered in our area :/
1.5Mbps Down, 384kbps up. $30 a month. Hardly worth it's price, but it's all I got, and I'd start stabbin' folk without it!
i haven't used dial up in nearly 7 years, the internet was too slow in it's current state with dial-up then, i can only imagine how little you can do these days with it, i would think it's boarderline unusable.
~~~~~~~~....,,``,,,,,,,,,------------_-------_--------------_-_____''''''''''''""""""""'''''...
Oops, wrong baud rate.
Put the crack-pipe down.... Really!
Nice graphic --
ever actually see any of that??
Yep... if you needed 8, N, 1 and set up for 7,Y,1 or the other way around you could see some very interesting things until it dropped carrier.
PEW? Aren't these the guys that said that 21% of atheists believe in god?
They do though, just as a large number of religious people can be made to admit they don't believe in a god.
I have no problems using dial-up. Maybe because dial-up is free in this area. And yes, I have used broadband, ISDN and others. Heck I was one of the first to get ADSL in the 90's. I guess it really depends on the content you desire if dial-up is okay. I mostly use it for web forums and email. Oh, I also use dial-up on a router.. and even wifi.
How many days to build up a engadget page?
a.k.a., AOL's surviving customer base.
they offer dsl thought verizon too.
Actually my "high speed" DSL (monopoly provider in Central Alaska) averages less than 56 Kbps (downloading the latest Linux DVD is estimated at 44 hours) so maybe they are not so foolish :-(
It sounds more like they are throttling you, like many service "providers" all over this country; or as I prefer to call them, con men and sham businesses.
As websites get more & more complicated(read: more ads, etc), 56K baud for the remaining dialup users is going to feel more like 300 baud back in the BBS days, ie too dang slow to even be useful.
"Pew! Pew! Pew!" That's my mind getting shot and consequently blown from the survey this company conducted, as I can no longer grasp the concept of truly "logging on" to the internet... It's been so long since I had America (barely) Online...
"middle of the wilderness"
...
...My first internet connection was 8 bits per second.
By the time I downloaded the first Red Hat, Fedora 3 was out....
I hate dial-up so much I won't even work on someone's system if they're using POT Lines. I refuse to stand around for 60 mins. downloading some driver or updated virus definition & then charging them $85.00 per hour.. I usually explain that DSL is so much faster that what they'd save by not being forced to pay me to stand around would cover the first 8 months of the price different. Heck, you can get DSL "Light" from most ISP's for less than $24.00 per month now.
Thats only if your in certain areas no everywhere.
Maybe they still have Windows 95.
When we lend my brother our computer for college we end up using my grandfather's old computer. It had Windows 98 and it can't handle the speed of dial-up.
In my area dial-up from aol or Earthlink like cost 22 or so a month, and I can get Verizon or AT&T for the same price for mid-level or 17 for entry level dial up, which is still pretty fast when you think about it. So for me I can't see how price is a barrier.
Maybe its not that they dont want to upgrade its that they can't.
My Greatgreatgrandparents live in the middle of no where and i truly mean middle of nowhere.
no cell service at all no gsm, no cdma no iden no dsl, no satelite no nothing
My greatgreatgrandparents have 50acres and I know for a fact you can't get dsl, cell service, satelite or anything of the like because its so remote and because the whole area is covered fully with trees
Good thing they don't have broadband internet access so they can go enjoy the natural beauty of their land instead of sitting in front of a computer screen reading how many people on Engadget think that everybody needs the same computing power they do.
convincing your grandma to upgrade to DSL, is like convincing her to do 100m sprint, won't happen, let her stay with the walkathon crowd
"and we can make fun of you because you're not reading this post anyway."
Well I read it and I'm on dialup! There's no broadband here where I live but I can manage without it. If I need to download a large file I take my laptop when I go to town 23 miles away and get broadband for free. You guys can have your big cities with all the conveniences. I'll stick here where I can take a piss on the road and not worry about being seen. Try that where you live. Besides I don't think you could last a few days out here where I am!
//bob
The article does mention that ur excused if you cant get broadband in your region. And why would you piss on the road??
What planet are you people on? Gas is up over a dollar since last year. People have stopped buying $6 coffees. Maybe some people are only justifying even dial-up because it allows the kids to do research for school; otherwise, that would be gone, too.
Get out of your parents' basement once in a while! Or out of your fancy NYC and SF residences.
Jeff Myers
In Cyprus broadband has been made cheaper than dial up yet most parents are still too ignorant to do anything about it. They dont understajnd the internet, let alone diferent speeds
Ah gotta love Australia. Our broadband prices are still around the $20-$30 mark a month for minimal usage. This is in great contrast to the $50 for a year that you can get 'pre-paid' dial up for. Some pensioners can even get dial up for free.
Then there is the problem of so many places within metropolitan, or only slightly regional areas which can't get broadband. There's talks of a new high speed network being built, but we've yet to be able to appreciate it.
I'm on dial-up. We have broadband at work - frankly, it's not worth the extra 30 bucks a month it would cost me just so I can download giant files without finding something else to do in the meantime. You-tube isn't that great but I can usually download it if I really want to see something.
If it weren't so expensive, yeah, I'd get it. Maybe when I move it'll be more reasonable but as it stands, I don't download a lot of stuff that would make broadband or DSL cost effective and the majority of pages load plenty fast enough for the majority of my needs. (Yea, Firefox!)
If you're not gonna use it, there's not much point in getting it, regardless of cost (unless it were cheaper, naturally). If e-mail is all you do then dial-up is much more reasonable than broadband or DSL. Granny doesn't have to waste her $10 a month - or me my $30 - just to satisfy the geek set.
Sheesh.
Oh, and for the 'My grandma won't upgrade and it's driving me batty' crowd there's an easy fix - you pony up the extra $60 to $120 (at $5 and $10, respectively) a year. Write Grandma a check and tell her if she doesn't really like it you'll shoulder the whole cost - the $30 to $50/yr for the rest of the contract term.
Maybe there's a reason Granny owns her home outright and you're living in your parents basement....
Or sign up for a data plan on your phone, (Like an EVDO or 3G phone, or even a 1X or EDGE phone) then tether it to your computer.
Does no one else find it oddly funny that a internet research company is named "Pew" ?
Cause I sure do... lol..
PEW PEW!
I am getting pretty damn tired of all you saying "granny this, granny that."
Yes, I have broadband, yes, I like it, can't wait for FTTH. We still have dial-up only at the Air Station, it sucks, I use my cell phone as wireless modem, it sucks too, only a little less than dial-up. On board the "Amazing Grace", we use satlink, but I don't pay for that. And I am too busy to use Bittorrent aboard the shrimper!
If you want your grandmother to have broadband, why don't you pay for it?
Sheesh. Kids these days. ;)
"It's the little old lady from Pas-a-den-a!!!!"
Sorry, couldn't resist... ;)
I recently moved back home with my parents (shut up, just graduated and dont have a job yet, leave me alone) and I am now stuck on their dial up
aaaa, horrible.
But, it works fine for my mom, she sends emails and pays bills, and has probably never heard of youtube.
But broadband is severly limited out here in the wilderness. high latency stuff and extremely expensive. Its not worth it for her.
Is driving me nuts though.
As long as you're looking for a job living with your parents doesn't count against you....
A year from now, that'd be different... ;)
Isn't there a cost to dial-up also(?)
I'm staying with my aunt and uncle and they have dial up and it's not fun at all... it's disgusting. they dont really seem to worried to upgrade it, no they're not old farts. I think it has to do with the hill they're house is on, broadband isnt availible up here. and we're in Grass Valley, CA