Dropping DSL

[lee635]

While the 768 k bps speed is nice, it's not really necessary for surfing the web. And Verizon's $50 per month is just too much. I found a 56 k bps dial up called called Highstream that actually offers dial up in our rural little town for about $9 a month.

What will be missed is the always on nature of DSL and not tying up the phone line. I wish Verizon had, for example, a 128 or 256 k bps DSL service priced at about $30 per month. That might have been worth keeping.

[James_F]

Too bad. I don't think I could ever go back to dialup.... I'm surprised that they don't offer cheaper service. Qwest here has a $29 service that is 256k. I pay $34 for Cox.net which they say is 2,560k... :shrug:

[gcutler]

I know people who were forced to go back by moving to an area without DSL or Cable Modem and they were not happy. Please don't kick the Dog when the speed is tooo slow :D But many people agree with you that $50/month is tooo much.

[bkwest]

I have 5.9mbit down and 384k up. Guess thats the joy's of working from home for an ISP.

bkw

[Steve Mehs]

First time I ever heard of someone going back to dial up besides what Gcutler said. I wish I could get DSL here, I could get MP3's in just a few minutes and surf the web at the same time and not tie up the phone line.

[James_F]

Not just that, but downloading a service pack from Microsoft takes seconds, not hours. :D

[Steve Mehs]

I wouldnt know, I've never downloaded a SP or windows update, beside IE/OE 6. :) I almost was going to download the Office 2002 SP, but after reading the comments I figured to save my time and not do it :)

[razorbackfan]

Not fair. I'm not even offered DSL or cable modem. My 56k modem connects at 26k. Does anyone have satellite internet access? That's what I'm thinking of getting.

[Geronimo]

i agree that broadband is just too pricey for some. I have Cox Internet. They recently raised rates in my area from $39.99 a month to $49.99 but as I mentioned in a nother thread bundle internet with basic cable to save me about $1.08 (although I get basic acable on one TV).

[James_F]

Geronimo, you are getting robbed! As I said above, I pay $34 for Cox here in Phoenix.... :shrug:

[Geronimo]

I agree they are robbing me! Unfortunately they are robbing me slightly less than the DSl companies and at least thsi way I get better reception in the bedroom but well it is still marginal. Can you tell I do not like cable?

[cnsf]

James_F,

In the NorthEast, finding any broadband for under $49.95/month at any speed is next to impossible, unless you get a cable bundle package (which most in this forum would never do, especially for a mere $10 extra each month).

It's just a factor of the fledgling telecom industry that needs to subsidize its losses and capital expenditures somehow....

[James_F]

Damn, another reason not to live in the east. :D

In Phoenix
Cox.net $34 a month
Qwest DSL $29-$39 a month

[gcutler]

I believe it is all based on if the Telephone company wants to compete with the cable company (if they can?) Bellsouth probably could drop the price $10 to $39 and then people would be able to rationalize the price better and it would become competitive with AT&T Cable modem. But I guess they are happy with what they have???

[lee635]

Well, so what if it takes two hours to download the latest windows service pack? Before bed, I setup the download and get up the next morning and it's done.

As for mp3 downloads, I've downloaded every piece of old music I can think of. Contrary to what the music industry would have you think, you're going to have a hard time compiling a complete CD of anything other than current hit music. For example, if you want The Police, you can find a smattering of their hits. But if you want the complete collection, your still going to end up buying the CDs.

I had DirecPC, the one way service. You log into to a local dialup and that's the connection you use to send data and you receive data via the satellite. They had a great service where you could subscribe to news groups and certain websites and at night your system would automatically download the stuff without having to dial out. But they stopped that service. Heck that would have been a great service for small ISPs to get newsgroup feeds for only $40 a month. The speed was quite variable, often slow, but late at night I could download even faster than DSL. The problem for most people is that you must subscribe to a local ISP plus the DirecPC service. I haven't tried the two way service.

Well we really only surf the net mostly, so cheap dial up is just fine. Beats $50 a month. I wonder what the attrition rate is for DSL subscriptions?

[James_F]

Hey if you can do it all the power to ya. I just can't stand waiting for any page to take time to load. :shrug: I guess it depends on what you pay for dialup. I'd rather pay $34 for Cable Modem than $20 for dialup. I guess thats just me. I'd probably still think that $50 was worth it.

[Bogy]

I have a cable modem at home, and dial-up at work. I get really frustrated at how long it takes to do a simple thing like check the email. And just about the time I decide I might as well do something else while I'm waiting, it finally finishes. If I can, I download stuff at home and bring it to work on a disk. My connection with Cox runs about $30.

[bogi]

Originally posted by lee635
While the 768 k bps speed is nice, it's not really necessary for surfing the web. And Verizon's $50 per month is just too much. I found a 56 k bps dial up called called Highstream that actually offers dial up in our rural little town for about $9 a month.

What will be missed is the always on nature of DSL and not tying up the phone line. I wish Verizon had, for example, a 128 or 256 k bps DSL service priced at about $30 per month. That might have been worth keeping.

756 for $50 ouch. And i thought att was bad. They have 1.5mbps/256mbps

[gcutler]

When I first started I only got 300Kbps download on average for $50. But they did some infrastructure upgrades a few month later and it is now 1.2Mbps download. I still thought it was worth $50 even with the 300Kbps. But I'm pretty impatient :D

[RandyAB]

I know that I will never go back to Dial Up if I have the choice. Recent trip to Iowa where the family I was staying had dial up. It totally sucked. Never go back to the slow load times.

[cnsf]

It all depends on how much your time is worth. If you spend a lot of time downloading, installing upgrades/updates, then $20-$30 extra each month is worth it. IMHO, I think an hour's worth of my time is valued at $100+ (internal/personal cost, obviously not billed to customer time). Everyone is different though in their value of time.

[lee635]

Originally posted by cnsf
It all depends on how much your time is worth. If you spend a lot of time downloading, installing upgrades/updates, then $20-$30 extra each month is worth it. IMHO, I think an hour's worth of my time is valued at $100+ (internal/personal cost, obviously not billed to customer time). Everyone is different though in their value of time.

I understand the point your making. But consider this, if you really value your personal time at $100 per hour, then why aren't you hiring someone to come in and maintain your system for you, and download mp3s for you, etc.? As long as the contractor charges you less than $100 an hour, you should do it, right?

The fundamental problem I have with your statement (and I know you don't mean it as an insult, just go with me...) is that it presents a no-win situation for me. Essentially it says, Lee, your time isn't worth much since you won't pay for my service. It's a ploy used by marketing types to shame you into paying for something. In point of fact, your free time is exactly that, free. You're not giving up some income by dropping DSL.

A more rational view of this revolves around a scarcity theory. I have more wants than I have available cash to pay for those wants. As a result one needs to prioritize expenses.

I think a more pursuasive argument would be to look from an alternatives perspective, maybe I'd rather spend $50 a month on my kids instead of DSL. You might enjoy a fast computer because you like play interactive games or enjoy the quick response time.

Finally, I want to clarify that the decision point is $50 for DSL versus $8 for 56k dialup.