Why are Cable, DSL, or Wireless providers doing nothing about it?

[Amol S.]

The fact that Dial-Up still exists because there are areas in the United States that still don't have cable, or their phone lines are not capable of DSL is surprising.

It's 2017, and 2.1 million people still use dial-up internet from AOL

Just because you don't use it doesn't mean other people aren't.

www.dailydot.com

Is AOL down? AOL dial-up subscribers still exist in 2019

With the unforgettable dial-up sound still locked in our minds, many may wonder, “Is AOL down or do AOL dial-up subscribers still exist in 2019?

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What’s it like to use AOL dial-up internet in 2017?

It wasn’t so long ago that dial-up was normal, but going back to 56K after years of faster connections can be a frustrating experience.

www.digitaltrends.com

How many people still use America Online (AOL) and, if so, why?

Answer (1 of 13): Don’t Know total number using AOL but I for 1 still use it, I joined AOL back in about 93 after appraising them with their offer of a free month by logging in with a credit card, I did this for 2 months & then decided as they met with my requirements at the time I would stick wi...

www.quora.com

I can understand that cable and fiber are almost brothers and sisters, both at the source end travel thru fiber however the cable goes on copper way before fiber. Still there are devices called repeaters if fiber is not to be stretched the entire length to a small rural town in the middle of Arizona dessert.

The other issue is that if you are able to get Dial-Up, shouldn't DSL be possible as well? I understand that DSL does have a distance limit, after which DSL just does not work. However, I do not think putting up just a single ISP DSL server for a small town in Arizona would cost much. For the internet end, a satellite dish could be used (which is actually not unheard of, especially for cable and fiber providers to do, well not for internet, but for television of course). But then this comes to another point, why are these folks not opting for satellite service providers? Dish does offer internet (although less reliable and slower than cable), which is must faster than Dial-Up.

Scince I am discussing about EM data transmission, most of us also know about wireless cellular service providers, and the fact that cellphones do have hotspots. Infact, 50.8% of Americans use a wireless service provider as their main home phone number. It is true that states like Arizona do have a lot of no coverage spots, even on networks like Verizon. But this raises another question, why start deploying 5G, when 4G or even 3G has not reached some areas of the United States?

A major factor that is discussed if dug further is costs. Which does make sense. However it still does not make sence for statlite based service providers.

 

[NoTine42]

Satellite Internet is expensive, kinda slow and capped...plus line of sight is not always possible. (When Exceed offered up to 100mb service, they only offered it near large cities, not rural areas)

But to answer your question, For years and years, phone companies collected millions in rural broadband subsidies and did a great job lining executives’ pockets with that $$$

This is why we need market disruptions like Elon Musk Starlink and Microsoft https://news.microsoft.com/rural-broadband/ to actually try fixing the problem.

 

[VirtualLarry]

This. Plus, some people are literally just cheap. If Dial-up is still $10/mo, then they'll choose dial-up, even when cable or fiber is available from $60-100. (Some people are on fixed incomes, I understand that.)

(*I remember some of my build threads from 3-5 years ago, when I would post high-res pictures and host them on my FIOS connection, before they allowed putting them directly on the server here, and some people complained that I needed a 56K warning on my thread(s). Apparently, there were still dial-up users even then, accessing this site!)

Granted, I live in a privileged area, of a privileged state of the Union, so I have my choice of both cable and fiber ISPs. (I currently have both.)

Some people are not nearly so lucky.

I had DSL for years and years, even before FIOS came to town, so I understand slightly. 3Mbit/sec down and 768Kbit/sec up, but ... uncapped! Man, was Usenet fun back then.

 

[EliteRetard]

Ahhh...memories.

 

[Spacehead]

I'm one of those rural dwellers that have very limited options.
3mbps max DSL for $40/month is what i have now.
HughsNet & ViaSat are my only other options here unless i go back to dial-up, if i could find a provider.
No cable close enough to me & i think cell towers are too far from me to go that route though i'm going to look into that more. Nearest Verizon tower is 6 miles away. There is a tower about 4 miles from me but no idea who is using it.

So what's going to be the difference from current HughsNet / ViaSat satellite & Elon's new Starlink satellites? Or Amazons version of satellite?


Back when i had dial-up i'd ask Verizon every few years if DSL would ever be available here & was always told the phone lines were too old & couldn't support DSL. Then about 8 years ago they magically brought DSL to my area. No new lines were laid.

My electric co-op has talked a couple of times about offering internet but they keep backing off.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Internet is a utility/service. It takes many customers to maintain service and equipment cost overhead. I live in a city of around 70k people and only have a few options of shoddy DSL or cable internet from Spectrum (Comcast is on the other side of town). Cable internet is fast here, but Spectrum is a very dishonest company with underhanded billing practices. I won't do business with them after 2015 when they changed my monthly rate out of the blue with no formal notice. I have money...just don't use that much bandwidth.

I am currently considering getting unlimited AT&T miFi through a reseller or fixed wireless internet. Either will be $60/month.

I'm currently using 50GB hotspot on Sprint as part of my $45 monthly unlimited plan....so no rush. Just looking.

 

[skyking]

I'm one of those rural dwellers that have very limited options.
3mbps max DSL for $40/month is what i have now.
HughsNet & ViaSat are my only other options here unless i go back to dial-up, if i could find a provider.
No cable close enough to me & i think cell towers are too far from me to go that route though i'm going to look into that more. Nearest Verizon tower is 6 miles away. There is a tower about 4 miles from me but no idea who is using it.

So what's going to be the difference from current HughsNet / ViaSat satellite & Elon's new Starlink satellites? Or Amazons version of satellite?


Back when i had dial-up i'd ask Verizon every few years if DSL would ever be available here & was always told the phone lines were too old & couldn't support DSL. Then about 8 years ago they magically brought DSL to my area. No new lines were laid.

My electric co-op has talked a couple of times about offering internet but they keep backing off.

DSL is transmitted over copper for distances of up to 3~4 miles from the CO ( Central Office).
That CO can now be as unobtrusive as a big cabinet alongside the road. They can put a cab like that in and it can go unnoticed.
It is still going over the old copper in your neighborhood.

 

[Red Squirrel]

They don't care as it's not profitable enough. In my area they rolled in FTTH, but they only did houses that are fed via overhead feed since it's too expensive to dig to do underground, so it's better for them to just move on and roll out to another city. There was plans to do more of the surrounding area then they got bought out several times and then the whole project just came to an end. They're probably going to try to push 5G instead, which is going to suck considering that is going to be capped. Our area is also really oddball since the name of the service was different, but then it got renamed to the one they use company wide, yet our user accounts are in the old system, which apparently nobody in the company has access to. If you call for support you don't exist and just keep getting bounced around until you give up.

 

[MtnMan]

Because they are allowed to rip off consumers, with the blessings of the government and the FCC.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Internet is not regulated like the phone lines are, there is no federal program to rollout/distribute high speed internet access to rural areas.

So, since its expensive to build infrastructure, and all the telcos and internet providers hate investing money ... they dont build it out.


SpaceX is planning to launch a dense constellation of thousands of LEO satellites to build out a global, high bandwidth, low latency internet service, in theory, after like 100 or so more launches, we might actualy see it come to fruition. But, I suspect it will cost a premium, or will have low monthly data limits at least initially....