It’s official: AOL’s dial-up internet has taken its last bow. The company confirmed it would discontinue the service on Tuesday, September 30th, citing routine evaluations of its offerings.
In the U.S., according to Census Bureau data, an estimated 163,401 households were using dial-up alone to get online in 2023, representing just over 0.13% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide.
Are these households in rural areas without many alternatives?
Starlink is available in the vast majority of the US. What is the cost difference though?
There are other legacy satellite providers like hughesnet that are somehow still hanging on. They don’t really hold a candle to starlink performance-wise, and they shit the bed in bad weather, but at least they’re not Elon. There’s going to be a lot of latency, but it’ll feel blazing fast if you’re coming from dialup.
There are other dialup providers still remaining as well, besides AOL. I know msn is still kicking at least. It’s kind of funny to think about receiving dialup service when almost all POTS lines have gone away, and much of the modern web will be borderline unusable without lots of tweaking, but at least grandma who lives out in the sticks can check her email, use chat clients, download articles and books, etc.
Are these households in rural areas without many alternatives?
Starlink is available in the vast majority of the US. What is the cost difference though?
edit: i dont like elon musk or starlink
F starlink
True
Starlink is $120 a month
There are other legacy satellite providers like hughesnet that are somehow still hanging on. They don’t really hold a candle to starlink performance-wise, and they shit the bed in bad weather, but at least they’re not Elon. There’s going to be a lot of latency, but it’ll feel blazing fast if you’re coming from dialup.
There are other dialup providers still remaining as well, besides AOL. I know msn is still kicking at least. It’s kind of funny to think about receiving dialup service when almost all POTS lines have gone away, and much of the modern web will be borderline unusable without lots of tweaking, but at least grandma who lives out in the sticks can check her email, use chat clients, download articles and books, etc.
New retirement gig: Fill the gap in the market for super-rural dialup.
It’d be like the new version of a rural post office. I could actually be a lineman for the county!