Cable or Dial Up

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Does anyone still use dial up?

Heck no! I cry when I think about how I used to have to disconnect the internet before people could call me or I call them lol. That was the worst...the WORST I tell you!!

Yes, I still use dial-up. Due to money problems when I moved up here I had to stick with the phone line for a while. I can handle the cost of cable I-net now, but the place is a mess. I don't want any service people coming over to hook me up until I can get things cleaned up. Unfortunately, due to my health problems, and my Executive Function Disorder, that's going to take a while. However, the wait has given me some valuable time to think. I had originally planned on getting the cheapest, no frills level of cable I-net, but lately I have been reconsidering, and may get the standard basic level instead. I want to sometimes use it for watching YouTube and other videos, and also free I-net TV. I don't have any cable or sat TV service, and the mountains block all broadcast signals, so I had been just watching my DVDs and video cassettes, until the TV died. I will be getting a new TV after I clean up this messy place, and after I get cable I-net. I will get one of those Roku boxes, so I can send I-net signals to the set from my computer hook up. Why pay for both cable I-net and cable TV when you can get both through cable I-net? This will more than justify the added cost of getting the standard tier of service instead of the no frills tier of service. After all, it's 2 for 1, right? Who doesn't like a bargain?

Here in rural France it is a case of dial-up or buying a satellite dish; the dish option being way too expensive. The company Orange (formerly France telecom) has a virtual monopoly on communications here and don't invest in rural areas. As a consequence I'm stuck with dial-up. The connection speed is often as low as 20k, this is what you'd find in a third world African village in the middle of nowhere. The insulation is crumbling and falling off the telephone wires. The wires themselves are hanging off the poles here and there and in some cases the poles themselves are leaning over ready to topple onto the ground. Welcome to third-world France!

There is 3g and fast internet for people who live in towns. Those in rural areas may have access to ADSL via the phone lines if they are within a short distance from the telephone exchange; other than that you are stuck with 56k dial-up. Where I am the phone lines are maintained so badly that the speed is often only 20k depending on the weather conditions - wet weather tends to reduce the quality of the connection.

damn i wouldnt have thought that about france.

i can see how sat systems would be too expensive but i cant fathom why there wouldnt be 3rd generation cellular service.
does that mean the people with 3g only phones cant use them in large areas of france?

Dial up??! ! LOL.. It's been 14 years since I had dial up.

Geez, might as well ask if people still travel by horse & buggy.

"Hey paw, they got this new fangled thing called the TELEGRAPH, lets you send messages over copper wires to the next county"
...
"Don't bother me with that crazy devil technology son, you get back to plowin that field now."

I've known a few people in rural areas who have been faced with the dilemma. The solution generally turns out to be a T1, 90s style. They're around $200-300 a month.

I'm not sure if grandfathered Verizon unlimited data plans support 4G. If anyone can shed light on this I'd appreciate it.

The satellite options are non-options, they are as slow as dialup.

where i live there is no cable internet. it is either dial-up or a very watered-down DSL [between 256kb/s and 640kb/s]. as slow as it is, it is new for here, having been widely available out in the sticks only since 2003 or so.

A T1 is 1.5mbps, however for people on a limited budget it may not be ideal

I use DSL. The top DSL speed in most parts of Germany lies between 6 and 16 MBit, and many places already have VDSL with 50 Mbit downstream. Alas, the area where I live only has 1.5 MBit DSL, and cable is not an option either I can get 2-3 Mbit with my notebook via UMTS, depending on the weather and the room that I'm in (it works best on my terrrace), but the download volume is capped. It seems that I have to wait until 2014 until I can get faster DSL around here.