Unbelievable: 3.5 Million People Still Pay For AOL Dial-up

I think I vomited a little in my mouth...

I second that comment.....1999 called they want their dial up connections back...

"What we do care about is that fact that there are still people out there reduced to using AOL dial up service. I'm willing to bet a good portion of them don't realize they're still being billed"
the reason people resort to dialup is because they cant get any other service. Where I live i cant get any ADSL service, no ports available. Many areas can't get any form of broadband, 3G, ADSL, Cable, and they can only get dial-up. The problem here is the goverment/communications people not getting their act together and realising this is a problem and its becoming a necessity to have high-speed internet.

Actually its not suprising considering that rural broadband access grows at a very slow rate due to lack of customer density.

@iam2thecrowe: it's not a necessity. It's a choice. If it's not available where you live, and you MUST have it, move. That simple.

AOL still exists?????!

We all know how many dumb people on this planet.

Not surprised at all, if you live down the street from my parents its dial up or nothing as 3G services are non-existent due to the valley we live in

wow... grandpa has a lot of time in his hands

chatting on MIRC while downloading a hi-res pictur eof Erika Eleniak.

I guess some people out there are still using the free cd/floppy trials haha

I stopped paying for AOL as soon as it became free to connect to it via your ISP. I still use AOL E-mail. Really the only reason I'm still on it. It's also convenient to have the news right in front of you in the same window and the Instant Messenger has expanded to communicate with other services, not just AOL/AIM contacts. I really do hate how much it slows down your computer though, but this is becoming less and less of a factor with newer technology. I'm on a 4-year old dual core machine and just upgraded my GPU from an NVIDIA 800 GTS 320 to a NVIDIA 460 SE 1GB. When I launch AOL, I don't see much of a difference. I game with it in the background, granted I don't really play the Battlefield or Call of Duty games, mainly just Halo once in a while. After a few minutes of launching AOL, it's just fine. I can't say the same for my older computer, though (2003-mid 2007).

Not sure why AOL does not sell rebranded adsl/cable. don't they feel sorry for their customers running dial up? Customers are not just paying for the service, but the experience. Not sure why AOL wants to associate themselves with slow internet.

We are the 1%!!

There's the standard youtube options 360p, 240p, etc.

Or if your on AOL dialup , you get the options "slideshow" or "text description of video"

Some places still dont have DSL. Where I live in a small city, we just had the ability to run DSL 2 years ago.
Never looked back at dialup and DSL is slow too

3 million of the 3.5 own Samsung phones.

Some people cant get high speed internet without going satellite. Some people refuse to pay for satellite. I don't blame them.

Well, it is surprising that people still pay AOL for internet access. The fact that people that live out is more rural areas, almost like myself(I use Verizon Wireless, which is about as fast as dial-up), have to rely on dialup is not surprising. Still, I live in a county which is larger than many(almost 30,000) that have close to 100% access to broadband, and it a part of a metro area(Atlanta), but only 20%, or less, has access to broadband.

I live on a street that has quite a lot of houses on it, even though we all own 10+ acres each, but we are nowhere close to having access to any type of real broadband. There is a lot of money to be had, if AT&T, or the other idiot companies, would roll out some real broadband. The only issue is that we do not live in downtown Atlanta, where all the money is.

sheep that didn't know the heard already moved.

All joking aside, my in-laws and parents still use AOL!!

Every time they come over instead of just using normal internet, they insist on signing into AOL ... and it's only a matter of seconds before you hear the annoying "You've got mail" voice.

This is also why European and Asian countries had better internet than the US and Canada. The population density is that much higher and payoff is faster in more heavier populated areas.

Look at Korea for example, they have the fastest internet in the world. They are also one of the most densely populated countries that aren't poor. It'll be easier in China and Japan as well.

I understand the need for dialup in some areas (my dad was one of them before he went crazy and got satellite internet). But the AOL dialup? Really? I mean there are sooooo many choices out there in the world for dialup service that are way better! Plus there are cell phone plans that are becoming less horrible, and are worlds faster than Dialup speeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

No, the fixed costs of providing broadband far outweigh the gains to be made by hooking up people in rural areas or in areas with low population density. Optical cables are very expensive to install and they would have to dig up ground and buy up rights to do that. Even if they could charge $100 a month for broadband service, a customer base of only 30,000 would mean it would take a very very long time for them to make their money back.

Companies would build if it were profitable. The fact that no one is building means that it is not at all profitable so don't hold your breath.

It makes me feel lucky to live in a city in Romania, where a 50MBPS internet connection costs ~$7/month. Truth be told many cities still struggle with 4-6MBPS DSL connections, but Dial-Up connections have almost completely disappeared from Romania. The only form of Dial-Up still used is through GSM networks in GPRS mode, in very small towns where are no land telephone lines for DSL.

You are suggesting that AT&T would have to install fiber optic lines to provide broadband, which is patently false. AT&T would simply need to install Remote Terminals, for straight DSL, or VRADs, for its U-VERSE. At the number of people AT&T could receive money from, in my county alone, such a venture would be greatly profitable.

The problem is that AT&T is charging more and more(Save for me, as I pay nothing for my landline. My girlfriend works for that rotten company) to use the 50+ year old POTS network here, and there have been little to no improvements. We even have to rely on booster coils, which is one reason we, at our home, cannot get DSL.

There are three central offices here, one for each of the small towns in this county. Oh, and there are a few remote terminals, for the very rich subdivisions. Outside of that, AT&T refuses to put any effort into bringing broadband out here, and Comcast will only provide cable television access. As to that, if Comcast is willing to provide digital cable, On-Demand, etc, then I do not understand why it doesn't provide internet access out here.

I try to download a blueray movie from aol dialup service I need to wait 50 years to finish my download. ok fine. just wait.

the thing people forget to take into consideration is a lot of rural areas still only have the option of dialup where broadband hasn't reached that far yet out there. There is an option to get satilite if you are willing to pay 80+ dollars a month in which most casual computer users won't pay that high of a premuim for somthing that is a lite DSL at best. Not to mentiopn every time a storm comes by your connection gets lost. So paying 10 to 20 bucks a months for dial up is the way to go still compared to the much more costly alternitives to rural areas that aren't able to gethigh speed yet..

It's all the Blizzard haters in North America under a single ISP.

Are they still using 56k modem? or something newer came out.

Dang... around here, in a semi-rural area around San Francisco, I thought ATT's DSL was slow (I had 1.5mbps before, then got comcast, and noticed that att now only offers 768kbps so their network must be overloaded).

lol... as part of the 99%, I'd like the default to be 480p and fullscreen 720p or something like that.

Wait, if I'm not mistaken, DSL uses the same lines to the home as dial-up does! What the hell? If so, it couldn't be that expensive to deploy, just put in some new equipment in the same boxes where they already have the phone stuff...