On 2011-02-05 17:20, Phil M Perry wrote:
On 2/3/2011 10:30 AM, James E. LaBarre wrote:
Last time I had tried BestWeb for Linux dialup, it was able to get an
IP through DHCP, establish the DNS entries, but then couldn't
establish routes. Their performance under Windows has become flakey as
well over the years (I had started with BW about 1996-97, haven't
dialed-up since 2009). For that matter, I think I had at one time been
able to dial-up through BW back about 1999-2000 under Linux, so that
adds to my impression that their service is degrading.
Yeah, with broadband so well established and affordable now, dial-up is
the poor, abandoned stepchild of ISP access. It's really going to be
limited to people living way out in the sticks (too far from the CO for
DSL) who can't afford cable or satellite and don't have cheap WiFi
access. I doubt that there's going to be much innovation or investment
in such a small market.
At least 33% of the US population is still on dial-up. And if you go by
the Internet World Stats below, the survey in 2010 for broadband
penetration shows that only 36% of the population has broadband.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/us.htm
This survey showed 40% users are on dial-up:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10454133-94.html
Dial-up is a small market in metropolitan areas, but is the norm in
rural areas for the reasons you've described. The metropolitan New York
and surrounding areas are unusually lucky in how much broadband
penetration we have compared to the average for the rest of the country.
As such, we have a tendency to think as if the rest of the country
shared what we have in a "let them eat cake" kind of way, not realizing
that our area is out of the norm in that regard.
If I had a choice of either dial-up or nothing, I'd use dial-up. It
might really suck for large downloads, but it's better than nothing.
[Obviously broadband is more desirable -- assuming it's available.]
--
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
[email protected]
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