Dial-ups

Drayton

Drayton

Chilled Dude of The Elite Four
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    On old days before wifi and broadband, we use phone line which connected to the PC which wait until the irritating noise and finally get connected. Do you still use it though? Do you think people still use dial-ups? Your thoughts?

    Here's the old refresher
     
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    Dial up is like the lifeline of the internet. It's still there, and probably more accessible than any other type of internet connection possible.
     
    Oh god, don't remind me.

    My grandparents still use dial-up, for whatever reason. It's not like they have to..they could probably get pretty decent internet. I guess they just don't want to pay for it, but they will still call me every other week asking how to make their internet faster. At this point the only thing I can say is "I don't know" and hold back my anger.
     
    Ban the Undead said:
    Oh god, don't remind me.

    My grandparents still use dial-up, for whatever reason. It's not like they have to..they could probably get pretty decent internet. I guess they just don't want to pay for it, but they will still call me every other week asking how to make their internet faster. At this point the only thing I can say is "I don't know" and hold back my anger.
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    i would be like quit paying for dial up and get time warner or google fiber (two of the choices in my area but i would not recommend the thrid at&t which scams)
     
    Remember 56k warnings?

    I haven't used dial up in a long time, but I have a lot of memories of it. I had a pretty slow dial-up connection until late 2004, when we finally upgraded. It's hard to believe that it's been nearly 12 years since then at this point, though I'll admit that I've become so reliant on a swift internet connection that I wouldn't be able to get by without it. (Nor would the schools I've attended or the employers I've worked for; video streaming seems to be expected both at work/school and at home these days.)

    It's only been a couple of years since I last used dial-up at my grandmother's house, though, and my other grandmother didn't have any form of internet until a few months ago. (Admittedly, she doesn't use it, but her relatives sure appreciate the upgrade!) I remember going a lot of places without internet connectivity even through the end of 2012 or so, and when I could get a connection, it was frequently dial-up. Phones have really changed that for me, though. I finally got a smart phone at the beginning of 2013, and now I'm connected to a fairly fast connection all the time (except when I don't have service and don't have a wifi network around).

    I do know a couple of people in rural areas who simply can't get anything other than dial-up still. One of them is from a bigger city, and really wants to upgrade, but there are apparently no options.
     
    Maki-Nishikino said:
    i would be like quit paying for dial up and get time warner or google fiber (two of the choices in my area but i would not recommend the thrid at&t which scams)
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    Right! Ever since I gave them a list of affordable high speed Internet and they never acted on it, I've given up all hope.
     
    I had dial-up for a little over 11 years, from March 2002 to May 2013. I had dial-up at home much longer than just about everybody else around me, since there were hardly any broadband providers around that my mom could afford. I had actually been looking into upgrading from dial-up since at least 2011, but it took a long time before a solution we could afford came up.
    I'm glad to be off of dial-up. As much as the modem handshaking noise has nostalgic value, it was so frustrating that for 11 years, my mom would frequently tell me to get off the internet so she could make a call or wait for a call. Downloads were getting to be increasingly large and painful, especially since around 2008.
     
    Ban the Undead said:
    Oh god, don't remind me.

    My grandparents still use dial-up, for whatever reason. It's not like they have to..they could probably get pretty decent internet. I guess they just don't want to pay for it, but they will still call me every other week asking how to make their internet faster. At this point the only thing I can say is "I don't know" and hold back my anger.
    Click to expand...
    The question then lies on if they are on the internet often enough to warrant speeds higher than 56k. If they log on multiple times a day, and broadband is available in their area, then yes I would personally recommend an upgrade.

    If not, then there's not much of a point to extend to broadband from dial up.
     
    Tsutarja said:
    The question then lies on if they are on the internet often enough to warrant speeds higher than 56k. If they log on multiple times a day, and broadband is available in their area, then yes I would personally recommend an upgrade.

    If not, then there's not much of a point to extend to broadband from dial up.
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    I say they're probably on it at least two-three hours each day, if not a tad bit more.

    Their computer is ancient too, so I'm sure that hurts them a lot.
     
    Team Fail said:
    Honestly if the hardware supports it, I'd suggest an upgrade. Our 10-year-old desktop supports speeds as high as 100Mbps, which we only recently got from our ISP.

    Also, depending on what they use the internet for would also be another option for an upgrade. If they're trying to watch videos and whatnot, that'll probably never happen on a dialup connection.
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    It'll probably support it then, their desktop is at least 10 years. I'm not sure what they actually use the internet for. I know they check the news on it, at least. There's probably tons of news videos they're missing out on.

    And I'm pretty sure they would love to watch Youtube lol. I'm still gonna try to convince them to upgrade...I know they would like it if they just tried it out
    [PokeCommunity.com] Dial-ups
     
    I heard that lots of people who have dial-up also have better connections, but they're afraid to cancel their dial-up in case something goes wrong. Also, the dial up sound is the sound of a serial connection travelling through audio, 80s computer program tapes sound the same. (I still have an 80s computer, obviously not my main lol)
     
    OH GOD. DIAL UP. THOSE WERE BAD TIMES.

    Videos took hours to load. Downloads were even worse, and you got kicked off whenever someone called, since people could still get through. :| Man, those speeds were slow. But even so, DSL isn't much better, so. u_u
     
    We never had dial up in my house, we always had cable internet :/
    I think it's probably still used in like...remote places?
     
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