shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 11:07
nextcollapse
To be honest, I’m surprised it lasted this long.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world
on 11 Aug 11:24
nextcollapse
Funny thing is dialup has been non viable for ~15 years if not more where I live. When you can get 100 mbit fibre for like $5 a month and it costs a whopping $12.5 dollars a month for a 1000 mbit fibre line, it makes no economic sense to offer dialup.
black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 11 Aug 11:36
nextcollapse
Where the fuck do you get fiber for $12/month?? Not in the US I assume.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 12:02
nextcollapse
Yeah, probably not. If your country is the size of a postage stamp, it doesn’t take a whole lot of capital investment to run fiber through the entire thing. Whereas if your country is the size of the United States, it takes a fuck ton of capital investment to cover even a decent portion of it by laying lines like that.
Anarch157a@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 11 Aug 12:25
nextcollapse
My country is as big as the US and we can get 500 Mbs fibre for $23, less than half what AT&T charges.
Is not the size of the country that make fibre costs to be so high in US, it’s unchecked, exploitative capitalism allowed by a corrupt plutocratic government.
ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
on 11 Aug 13:12
collapse
You mean Canada? Or Australia? Countries where they are as big of a landmass but people dont actually live in remotely close to the entire thing? 95% of people in Canada live in a 100 mile stretch of the southern part of it. Australia is the same way with the coasts versus the interior… its not remotely comparable even if they are the same size on a technical basis
Anarch157a@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 11 Aug 14:18
collapse
Brazil. Our population density map is not that different from the US, only it’s over one long shore, instead of three (four if you count the great lakes as a shore). Still, even deep into the Amazon region, like the city of Manaus, you can have 600 Mbps fibre for less than US$20.
Size of the country of population density is not the reason internet access is expensive in the US. Greed and corruption are.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world
on 11 Aug 12:27
nextcollapse
Less to do with absolute size and more to do with urban density and population concentration.
Bullshit excuses. They were given bank ass roll to build that shit out proper and just pocketed it.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 13:01
collapse
I said absolutely nothing about government subsidies, and in another comment, further down the thread, I even said that if a company gets government subsidies to do so, and does not do so, they should be made to pay the money back with interest.
The are large portions on the US where there’s dialup or satellite only.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world
on 11 Aug 11:32
nextcollapse
Every rural house gets a phone line, just like they all get roads and mail
It’s not profitable, but that didn’t matter because it was a utility
With Broadband, it’s a “luxury” so to get it out to a clump of rural users, they all need to pay for it, or wait and hope someone else pays to get it closer.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 11:45
nextcollapse
Not anymore. Now the cell phone company just puts up a tower and runs one fiber line to it and everybody has high speed internet or a rich billionaire launches some satellites into space on his rockets.
Laying one fiber line to a cell phone tower is much cheaper than laying a bunch of fiber lines to each individual household.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world
on 11 Aug 11:49
collapse
We may have different standards for “rural areas”…
I did Google for starlink because I’m not up to date on their coverage, and there’s still a lot of dead ones up north.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 11:57
collapse
That is possible. I was basing my comment on some information from an FCC report that said that there was no place in the continental United States that was not able to be covered by Starlink.
There was this program called Bead that was going to prioritize places with no internet access whatsoever or dial up for the first people to get funding, and they say they found that there wasn’t any, so they had to go for the next thing which was slow internet.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world
on 11 Aug 12:02
collapse
And there’s lots of valid reasons to not want starlink. So it really doesn’t matter if that’s the only option.
But…
The American taxpayers have paid telecom companies billions of dollars on at least two separate occasions years apart to roll out broadband to everyone. But they just keep taking money and not doing it, and then a decade later lobby for the money again.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 12:12
collapse
Yeah, you do make a good point there. I’ve seen that happen. Where a company takes money and doesnt do it. Those companies should be made to repay the money with interest for not doing what they said they would. But I’ve also seen companies that actually do the job and get high-speed internet out to those who wouldn’t have otherwise had it. So I think it really just depends on the company.
The two companies I’m thinking of right off the top of my head are AT&T and T-Mobile. AT&T took money to roll out broadband and never did so, and T-Mobile merged with Sprint, and said they would roll out high-speed broadband to very rural areas, and actually did do it, and I ended up benefiting from T-Mobile’s home internet rollout.
I lived in a pretty rural area for a while that had 10 MBPS wired internet or satellite and then T-Mobile came around and with their home internet you could get 70 MBPS so that was a no-brainer
givesomefucks@lemmy.world
on 11 Aug 18:58
collapse
Biden just did it in 2024 again, I think that was “just” 5 billion tho
Pretty sure there was more than just those two
moseschrute@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 12:44
nextcollapse
That’s like Netflix discontinuing their dvd service only a few years ago
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
on 11 Aug 16:03
collapse
I read like 10 years ago that a small but still double digit percentage of their income still came from dial-up subscribers many of whom didn’t still use the service. It was speculated at the time that many of these people simply didn’t realize they were still paying for it. I’m guessing they all finally died or credit card numbers changed enough that it wasn’t free money for them anymore.
black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 11 Aug 11:36
nextcollapse
End of an era
youngalfred@lemmy.zip
on 11 Aug 12:17
nextcollapse
Man, AOL is so anachronistic, I thought for sure they had just misspelled AOC and was wondering why she had offered dial-up internet service in the first place.
darkdemize@sh.itjust.works
on 11 Aug 13:03
nextcollapse
Goodbye.
BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social
on 11 Aug 13:10
nextcollapse
Per your own link: they started as game delivery service called Control Video Corp and later became an AppleLink service called Quantum Link. They became AOL in 89 when they separated from Apple and offered internet modem pools starting in 91.
threaded - newest
To be honest, I’m surprised it lasted this long.
Funny thing is dialup has been non viable for ~15 years if not more where I live. When you can get 100 mbit fibre for like $5 a month and it costs a whopping $12.5 dollars a month for a 1000 mbit fibre line, it makes no economic sense to offer dialup.
Where the fuck do you get fiber for $12/month?? Not in the US I assume.
Yeah, probably not. If your country is the size of a postage stamp, it doesn’t take a whole lot of capital investment to run fiber through the entire thing. Whereas if your country is the size of the United States, it takes a fuck ton of capital investment to cover even a decent portion of it by laying lines like that.
My country is as big as the US and we can get 500 Mbs fibre for $23, less than half what AT&T charges.
Is not the size of the country that make fibre costs to be so high in US, it’s unchecked, exploitative capitalism allowed by a corrupt plutocratic government.
You mean Canada? Or Australia? Countries where they are as big of a landmass but people dont actually live in remotely close to the entire thing? 95% of people in Canada live in a 100 mile stretch of the southern part of it. Australia is the same way with the coasts versus the interior… its not remotely comparable even if they are the same size on a technical basis
.
Brazil. Our population density map is not that different from the US, only it’s over one long shore, instead of three (four if you count the great lakes as a shore). Still, even deep into the Amazon region, like the city of Manaus, you can have 600 Mbps fibre for less than US$20.
Size of the country of population density is not the reason internet access is expensive in the US. Greed and corruption are.
Less to do with absolute size and more to do with urban density and population concentration.
Bullshit excuses. They were given bank ass roll to build that shit out proper and just pocketed it.
I said absolutely nothing about government subsidies, and in another comment, further down the thread, I even said that if a company gets government subsidies to do so, and does not do so, they should be made to pay the money back with interest.
I’m just talking about the reality of what happened in the US, not some hypothetical
Of course not.
I remember when I first moved to the US and saw the broadband and cell phone prices. Corruption american style.
You still didn't answer where ;)
Don’t visit Canada then. American prices look dirt cheap compared to what we have here.
The are large portions on the US where there’s dialup or satellite only.
Every rural house gets a phone line, just like they all get roads and mail
It’s not profitable, but that didn’t matter because it was a utility
With Broadband, it’s a “luxury” so to get it out to a clump of rural users, they all need to pay for it, or wait and hope someone else pays to get it closer.
Not anymore. Now the cell phone company just puts up a tower and runs one fiber line to it and everybody has high speed internet or a rich billionaire launches some satellites into space on his rockets.
Laying one fiber line to a cell phone tower is much cheaper than laying a bunch of fiber lines to each individual household.
We may have different standards for “rural areas”…
I did Google for starlink because I’m not up to date on their coverage, and there’s still a lot of dead ones up north.
That is possible. I was basing my comment on some information from an FCC report that said that there was no place in the continental United States that was not able to be covered by Starlink.
There was this program called Bead that was going to prioritize places with no internet access whatsoever or dial up for the first people to get funding, and they say they found that there wasn’t any, so they had to go for the next thing which was slow internet.
And there’s lots of valid reasons to not want starlink. So it really doesn’t matter if that’s the only option.
But…
The American taxpayers have paid telecom companies billions of dollars on at least two separate occasions years apart to roll out broadband to everyone. But they just keep taking money and not doing it, and then a decade later lobby for the money again.
Yeah, you do make a good point there. I’ve seen that happen. Where a company takes money and doesnt do it. Those companies should be made to repay the money with interest for not doing what they said they would. But I’ve also seen companies that actually do the job and get high-speed internet out to those who wouldn’t have otherwise had it. So I think it really just depends on the company.
The two companies I’m thinking of right off the top of my head are AT&T and T-Mobile. AT&T took money to roll out broadband and never did so, and T-Mobile merged with Sprint, and said they would roll out high-speed broadband to very rural areas, and actually did do it, and I ended up benefiting from T-Mobile’s home internet rollout.
I lived in a pretty rural area for a while that had 10 MBPS wired internet or satellite and then T-Mobile came around and with their home internet you could get 70 MBPS so that was a no-brainer
The government gave them $400 Billion dollars (that were paid from our taxes) to do it and they pocketed the money.
huffpost.com/…/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_583939…
Biden just did it in 2024 again, I think that was “just” 5 billion tho
Pretty sure there was more than just those two
That’s like Netflix discontinuing their dvd service only a few years ago
I read like 10 years ago that a small but still double digit percentage of their income still came from dial-up subscribers many of whom didn’t still use the service. It was speculated at the time that many of these people simply didn’t realize they were still paying for it. I’m guessing they all finally died or credit card numbers changed enough that it wasn’t free money for them anymore.
End of an era
that sound
Man, AOL is so anachronistic, I thought for sure they had just misspelled AOC and was wondering why she had offered dial-up internet service in the first place.
Goodbye.
+++ATH
AOL was founded in 1983 and dial-up would have been the only way to access it. These dates are suspect.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL
Per your own link: they started as game delivery service called Control Video Corp and later became an AppleLink service called Quantum Link. They became AOL in 89 when they separated from Apple and offered internet modem pools starting in 91.
oh dear, I just skimmed for the founding date.
Meanwhile, MSN Dial-Up still exists for some reason, you could say it’s the COBOL of Microsoft.
TIL AOL Dial up is still a thing.