Dial Up Users - Check in

[dem mba]

Poll question: Dial Up Users - Check in

Just wanted to run a quick unscientific poll to see who is using dial up and who is using broadband (DSL or whatever) to connect to the internets.

I just read an article that said AOL had $242M revenue for dial up subscribers for 1Q 2010. Seemed very high. Was curious what the breakout in the DU community looked like. I know we have lots of "dial up warnings" on some photo-heavy threads.

Thanks!

[nonconformist]

1. Broadband for years here, cable. And I live in the boonies.

I haven't been on AOL since I think about 1996. Not on dial-up since 2002 or so.

[Elwood P Dowd]

2. What is Dial Up and AOL?

I'm getting old and my memory of antiques is not what it use to be.

[Cresent City Kid]

3. Don't get me started on AOL

I have dial up with People PC, which is okay, but still dial up.

Thanks for ...buffering... posting this.

[onehandle]

4. We've had a cable modem since the 90s.

I cannot remember the last time I used dial up.

None of our Macs have even had a dial up port since 2001.

[targetpractice]

5. My mother pays AOL monthly...

... despite having Comcast broadband... She doesn't know how to turn it off, and refuses to let me help her figure it out.

So, I'll bet that much of AOL dial-up revenue is from auto-billing folks (like my mother) who don't realize they are being billed, don't know how to stop being billed, or perhaps are deceased.

Have you ever tried to cancel an AOL account? I have, and I know that my Mom is no match for the tactics they use to keep users on the hook. It's practically abusive.

[woo me with science]

6. We had no diffculty cancelling ours.

Granted, we did it right after AOL had a run of very bad publicity about their treatment of customers who tried to cancel, so I suspect they were responding to that. We talked to a very nice person who took care of the request immediately.

[gvstn]

8. Ha

My stepfather did that for years after getting DSL. He stubbornly refused to deal with the problem because he didn't understand the intertubes and his daughter had worked at AT&T(his dialup provider) years before and he thought it was good to support the company. They were charging $26.95/mo. for his dialup when he was connecting through Verizon. Gaaah!

****

I'll admit I got addicted to torrents after first getting broadband but most of the sites I actually use everyday are just text based sites. If it weren't for all the Flash based ads and Google-analytics and site-meters and such I could do fine on dialup for just browsing.

[dem mba]

14. I bet there is a browser extension or module

for Chrome or Firefox that allows you to disable flash, graphics and video if you wanted.

[gvstn]

20. I use FF with Adblock Plus

And my Outpost firewall blocks the rest of the ads. But I still see all kinds of things flashing in the left hand bottom of FF that show that to get to most sites there are tons of extraneous connections that are being made.

10 years ago that was not the case. xxxx.xom connected you to the site directly without all the intermediary crap in between. I think today dial-up could be really annoying even for a straight forward site like DU.

If capitalism was working properly basic DSL should be around $10 bucks a month. It doesn't cost the phone company any more than dialup and there are no federal regulations limiting speeds.

[Cresent City Kid]

10. Okay you started me on AOL

I took AOL's 90 day free offer when I got to San Antonio after Katrina. I don't have credit, so I went out and got a debit card to get it hooked up. I should have waited for my permanent debit card to come in, but at the time I didn't think it would matter. When I activated my permanent card, AOL blocked my internet access right away. I changed my AOL account settings to reflect the new number, (same debit card accout) which AOL took as the end of the 90 days free, 2 weeks in. I guess I missed it in the fine print, even when looking for it after the fact.

They let me back on the web, but hit me right away with the $25 for the first month, which caused me to miss my car insurance payment and that was cancelled. I got steamed and "cancelled" my AOL right away. Actually, I first tried to resolve it with the online support. I wanted a refund, and they said they didn't owe me a refund. I told the guy online that I was cancelling my AOL. I cancelled online, by mail, and phone call. Six months later I got a letter informing me that AOL was suing me for FOUR months of service. I never responded or heard from them again.

I now pay $13 per month for People PC. Like I said, it's still dial up, but the service is great. I think I missed one payment, and instead of cutting me off, I got one of those polite "have you forgotten us?" kinds of e-mails. I always make sure my card is sufficiently loaded to pay them, and other than speed, I have no problem.

[dem mba]

12. yea, you're hardly alone

why AOL took such a hard stance against their customers is beyond me. I guess with 30 million subscribers (in their heyday) you can't be nice to all of them.

But I just read another report that puts their current subscriber levels at 5 million. Whoops. Guess customer service is still worth a bit of an investment after all. (note - another article said that AOL had outsourced all of their call centers. funny how that works sometimes, eh?)

[Cresent City Kid]

16. I don't know how they're holding on

Apart from the service horror stories, the price difference alone is enough to make me scratch my head. There was nothing about AOL that made it worth more than People PC, for it to be twice as much is ridiculous.

Anyone remember the internet dark ages when there was just AOL and Prodigy? They pushed Prodigy out of the market and got cocky, I'm guessing.

[dem mba]

11. ha!

i bet it would only take you about 20 minutes to cancel it for her, if that though. haha.

[targetpractice]

18. True...

To cancel you basically just need to say, "NO, NO, NO, NO... I'm not LISTENING TO YOU!!!" It's a bit uncomfortable, but doable.

My mother avoids conflict at all costs... She spends all weekend cleaning house before her housekeeper shows up on Mondays.

So, I think she feels that the AOL agents need to keep their jobs.

[dkf]

7. 3G on ATT.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Give them time.

They need it.
:D

[Renew Deal]

13. Should Dial-Up users be banned?

:evilgrin:

[dem mba]

15. no

their lives are miserable enough already.

:rofl:

[Cresent City Kid]

17. When it comes to videos

we're already banned.

[Turborama]

19. Two-way satellite-only here. Not sure which choice to use in the poll...

...as it's neither dialup or "high speed".

http://www.speedtest.net>