Before we started our broadband company, we had 3 landlines. One for
personal use, one for business use, and one for internet access. None of
the 3 lines were capable of more than 28 Kbps on a clear sunny day. More
often, about 20 Kbps. We had a modem that was directly connected to our
router. The main reason for the slow speeds was because we are ~~ 75,000
feet (over 14 miles) from the CO. When you picked up a phone, it took at
least a second or two before you got a dial tone. It was a miracle it
worked at all. At some point after we established our broadband company,
the 3rd line became a backup phone line. There was even a point where
none of the 3 lines actually worked. That became the writing on the
wall; especially when VoIP became a reality.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 8/12/2025 8:00 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
If it’s from self-reported census data, I’m still skeptical.
Most people today don’t know what a landline is, they think their
cellphone is a landline. They also don’t know what dialup is. Ask
someone with DSL and they may call it dialup because it goes over the
phoneline. They say WiFi when they mean Internet, and modem when they
mean router.
I felt dialup became totally useless for most use cases over 10 years
ago when it was no longer possible to do Windows Update or update
antivirus software over a 56 kbps connection. People would have to
take their computer somewhere else every few months to get updates.
And for anything other than a computer they probably need WiFi which
is technically possible over dialup but nobody buys that equipment any
more (I forget what it was called or who made it).
Anybody using a dialup modem connection today is probably using a FAX
machine or something like a POS credit card terminal.
We got out of dialup in 2009, I might still have some Ascend remote
access servers somewhere if they didn’t go to the recycler, I think it
was something like a MAX4096? Let me know if you actually want them
and I’ll look. Most of them were on Chicago metro area numbers but we
had one in DeKalb for our wireless customers to use for free in case
of an outage. Nobody used them, even in 2009, they would rather drive
to town and use the WiFi at a coffee shop than use dialup, it was
considered that useless.
People these days will say their Internet is so slow it’s at “dialup
speed” when they’re downloading at 1 Mbps. People don’t know what 56
kbps feels like. I mean, in today’s terms, that’s 0.000056 gigabits.
Asking Google AI how long it would take to download a game at that
speed, it answered: “Therefore, it would theoretically take
approximately 168 days (almost half a year) to download Call of Duty:
Black Ops 6 on a 56 Kbps dial-up connection”.
*From:*AF <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Bill Prince
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 12, 2025 9:37 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] OT: Oh No! No more modem sounds!
The 1/4 million I heard yesterday had to be an estimate. In today's
paper they had this. It's still an estimate, and it is 2 years old.
/Still, a handful of consumers have continued to rely on internet
services connected over telephone lines. 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./
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 8/11/2025 9:16 PM, Trey Scarborough wrote:
I don't see how they have lasted this long or how there could be a
250k people that would be able to get an actual land line to be
able to use 56k dialup.
This makes me have so many questions. Like where are all these
PRIs and dailup units to run these. I remember removing many of
the old Lucent max TNTs that AOL used for dialup in our COs in the
mid 2000s. I tried to reconfigure a couple of them to use as VOIP
gateways, but they had a custom firmware on them that it wouldn't
go back to regular defaults. How are they still running all of
these local numbers? I'm in ATT/VZ/CL main COs on a regular basis
and think I would notice dial up equipment running in the colo
spaces and cant say that I have noticed any. I have seen a few
portmaster PM3s that do not look like they are functioning
anymore. All the ports have alarms and the companies they are
labeled as being have been bankrupt for years.
For certain the oddity that they are still somewhat functioning
today completely astonishes me.
On 8/11/2025 2:36 PM, Bill Prince wrote:
For those of you who think nostalgically about those warm
modem dial-up tones, AOL is discontinuing its dial-up service.
Music to the ears of all ISPs that there will now be about a
quarter million new internet customers.
https://pcper.com/2025/08/aol-discontinues-dial-up-wait-what/
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