You’ve Got Mail

[DWalt]

I read an interesting news story yesterday about AOL. Seems that it is terminating dial-up internet connection service in September. Most here probably remember attaching a modem to your telephone and listening to that screechy sound it made while it connected. I had assumed dial-up, and AOL, went extinct over 20 years ago, but that is not correct. The story said that there were still areas of the country that had no other way to connect to the internet, but it did not say where. I still have somewhere an old phone with a built-in modem, I had forgotten about it. I do remember buying it at Radio Shack. That was long ago when I still had a land line.

 

[TX-Dennis]

I used AOL briefly in the early 90s. Then switched to Prodigy which was still dial up. First dial up modem was 14.4. Last one was 56.6 kbps. Imagine trying to look at today's image and video heavy web at those speeds. Would take hours to load some pages.

My first cable connection (probably around 1999-2000) was 30 mbps down and 300 k up, if memory serves.

 

[LVSteve]

I used AOL briefly in the early 90s. Then switched to Prodigy which was still dial up. First dial up modem was 14.4. Last one was 56.6 kbps. Imagine trying to look at today's image and video heavy web at those speeds. Would take hours to load some pages.

My first cable connection (probably around 1999-2000) was 30 mbps down and 300 k up, if memory serves.

Indeed, improved bandwidth and processing power brings out a rabid desire in today's webpage writers to fill that new capability with junk.

In Nevada there is a place called Stonewall Pass. I suspect the old phone lines there struggle with 56k. In Steve's not-so-benign dictatorship, all webpage writers should be required to spend time there in a drafty double-wide so that they learn to write efficient code, in between dealing with the snakes, coyotes, and windscorpions. Get caught junking up your pages, and you get sent back for "re-education".

 

[Onomea]

I recall visiting Volcano Village on the Big Island of Hawaii in the early 2000s. The only way to connect via email back to my office in Tokyo was to connect my laptop to a public phone in the courtyard of the hotel I was staying at. Took a while to send and receive, but it worked. Used to plug in once a day to keep tabs on things.

I suppose DSL is still out there, an internet connection that works over phone lines.

 

[Rule3]

 

[CRT2]

1984 and using 2400 baud modem to connect a Perkin-Elmer mini computer to a mainframe in the Pentagon. Those were the days. PC Jr.

 

[Rudi]

I still have a land line. But have sat. internet.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Two years ago I was using a landline solely for my pacemaker telemetry transponder.

Now my Wi-Fi provider handles it.

No hiccups so far.

 

[DWalt]

Two years ago I was using a landline solely for my pacemaker telemetry transponder.

Now my Wi-Fi provider handles it.

No hiccups so far.

My wife has a pacemaker, and for quite a few years we also needed a land line to communicate with the cardio clinic. We used it for nothing else. She now has a newer pacemaker which uses wireless communication (sort of like a built-in cell phone link) so we no longer needed a land line for anything. That saves a lot of money.

 

[45Smashemflat]

Two comments - started out with a 1200 Baud dial up connection to our mainframe in college. No internet… was used to learn FORTRAN 77 in the migration from punch cards. Dial up was to be able to do work at night when there was less traffic.

A buddy of mine whose wife had cardiac issues and a pacemaker/defibrillator found themselves in need of a land line. Our solution was to find a telephone booth. Gotta admit, that was odd, but the only land line we could locate at the time.

 

[Bald1]

There are still places in and around Buffalo NY that do not have access to high speed internet. Because, you know…… NY Excelsior !

 

[cherrypointmarine]

My wife retired with 40 years with AT&T . That entitles her to a free land line , which we pay taxes on , 76 cents a month . We also get highest speed internet for $10 a month . We were getting Direct TV for taxes before she retired , but that went away in retirement . So we stream or I watch mostly Samsung free streaming . It has everything I watch , so that's good enough for me .

 

[crows]

There are still quite a few areas in the country without internet access unless you have a dish. Also no cell service.

 

[Jeff423]

FWIW: I had a weekend place in a rural area that only had DSL. The speed was 8-10 mbps but I never had a problem and could watch Netflix, Prime, Hulu etc. with no issues. It made me wonder - realistically - how much speed do you need? When fiber became available last year I switched to that because it was $20.00 a month cheaper, but I got their slowest offering - 100mbps and didn't see any difference in my viewing. I guess if I had 3 kids gaming at the same time it might have made a difference.

 

[grover99]

Just got fiber two years ago. Before that I had a land line which I used only to get internet from AT&T. Because I live in a rural area and there was little to no competition I paid two to three times what the same speed service would have cost in the city.

 

[sceva]

I well remember using the dial up modems and their screeching. We have a very long lived cockatiel ( still going strong) that could mimic the modem noise perfectly.