There are probably some more excuses I've forgotten. These are not
> fabrications but real (paraphrased) excuses I've heard over the years.
> Granted, it's a small number of potential broadband customers, but it
> does reflect some real concerns that seem to have escaped the author > of the article.
>
> Incidentally, the situation was not much different in 1995, when
> dialup was the new thing and internet access became fashionable: >
Funny, you left off the most common answer (and one that I use too).. Why? I pay about $9 a month for dialup, and cable is about $50 a month.... Why spend about $40 a month, just to get junkmail/spam faster?
Or how bout I travel a lot, and the broadband will only work when I am at one place, not the 50 weeks a year I travel....:)
Actually most places you might be staying would have broadband anyway so all you would need would be a wireless card and you most likely would be good to go. If you have something BIG you need the two weeks you are home , there is always Starbucks or similar.
Depends on where you stay. Lots of hotels have it for free. About the only time I pay for Internet any more is at the casinos. Most condos I use if I am going to be gone for awhile include it in the price.
Over the past two years, all of the motels I've stayed at have advertised "High Speed Internet" or more typically "High Speed Wireless Internet", but so far in every case I've found that they mean there's a usable wireless signal down in the lobby only. In my room, there's never been enough signal to be able to pull down web pages or email without the connection stalling or timing out. For the places that had wired Internet but not wireless, it has typically meant a very old and well used PC in a dusty corner of the lobby. Naturally, I never saw anyone using it.
Take my experiences with a grain of salt, though, because I usually shop for motels by price. (Days Inn, Motel 6, Super 8, etc.) Maybe the more expensive places would be different.
All my laptops (and PDA's) have wireless...That's essentially why I use a wiflyer
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, wireless travel router that connects to both ethernet AND has a built in dialup modem, and since I mostly use wireless, if I have something big, and the motel doesn't have high speed, I just find free wifi when I go out to eat....
Just an aside, there are certain broadband providers that will *NOT* let you access your email, unless you on their system directly.... Had to change mail providers a few times to find one that worked no matter how I connect (not a problem if you are in one place, always connecting the same way, but as I said, I travel a lot, and having one/same email address for the last 12 years no matter where I am at, has been a lifesaver )
Also depends on where you travel too.... Unfortuntely, I have been in everal places that have no cable/dsl etc (but a phone for dial-up), and no way are they gonna have wireless!
HUH!?!??!? Those ARE the high end places (to me! :) Unfortunately, expensive also sometimes doesn't mean squat, I remember one place in Talkeetna (alaska), that was $250 a night, but had absolutely no wireless nor wired! That's when I started thinking location location location...... :)
many of them are far too large to download on a dialup line. Why spend over an hour just to download one seurituy update, when can use broadband and download it in seconds. I, of course, am one of those who believes that saving time is more important than saving money.
You should change your priorities and put saving time ahead of saving money.
Every Holiday Inn (regular, Express or Staybridge Suites)I've stayed over the last two years has either had usable wireless in the room or ethernet connection in the room. Same with (fewer) Marriotts
That is one of the reasons I like Earthlink. No matter where I am I can get to the Web-based e-mail and look without paying anything else to ELN, anyway.
Actually, I haven't heard it in quite that form. What I usually hear is something like, "broadband costs about 3 times as much as dialup. Will I get more than 3 times the fun/features/functionality on broadband as dialup?" I guess there are those that don't mind staring at the download indicator for 3 times as long.
A demonstration of fast browsing, online music, video, gaming, downloading, updates, and such are usually insufficient. What always gets their attention is Skype, GizmoProject, X-Lite or other VoIP phone. These work over dialup, but just barely. You also can't receive calls on dialup if you're not connected full time. A free or very cheap phone call to some long lost relative in the old country usually clinches the sale.
That's not an issue for my business and commercial customers. It might be for a few of my customers that travel, but most of these also have spouses and families at home that will use the connection.
For those that do travel, I usually advise them that about 1600 to
2000 laptops per day are stolen and that they would be better off leaving theirs at home. My guess(tm) is about 1 in 4 that have ignored this advice, have had their laptops stolen while on a trip or vacation. The issue is not the replacement cost of the laptop. It's the vulnerability to various breach of disclosure laws if there is personal, customer, or vendor information on the laptop. Removable drives and/or encrypted filesystems have saved a few customers from embarrassing and expensive complications:
I think my next product will be a laptop destruct device, which ignites or explodes inside the laptop if someone attempts to use it without the proper incantations. Your money back if your laptop or data survives.
But if it saves time, its worth the extra money. That is why when I was growing up in Marin County, I was willing to spend an extra 50 cents each way to take an express bus, for longer trips in the county, about 40 minutes vs 2 1/2 hours (and more buses without using the express). From a young age, I considered saving time to be more important, whether you can afford it or not.
If you are going to use dialup, at least have a second phone line and use two modems and two phones to double the connection speed to about 100K.
If they download that much. My mom is still on dialup and during a recent visit I found it perfectly adequate for her low email volume and even my ssh sessions. It _is_ slow for browsing today's heavyweight webpages. But she doesn't do that more than a few times per week!
She doesn't care about VoIP since she has excellent and inexpensive voice service. My godmother is even worse: she has neither computer nor any email account. I'm not sure she really needs them. Her interests are her grandkids and I doubt the greater quantity of traffic via email/IM would be any compensation of the loss of emotional contact via voice and in-person. She doesn't have data to transmit, and I don't think email would be "a way in". Kids aren't very patient and [grand]parents a [necessary] intrusion.
I don't use MS products personally, so I'm not sure but I presume they can run unattended. When I had dialup 5+ years ago, I would occasionally download ISOs overnight.
??? even most new (US & world) construction has copper to the house. Very little FTC. POTS and dialup will be around for a _very_ long time (50+ years). The justification to replace it just isn't there [yet].
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