• Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.

AOL Dialup is gone!

As Steve Jobs would tell us, the correct solution isn't always the one you think you need. Stringing wires is expensive and causes a permanent major maintenance hassle. A large majority of the rural US has LTE or 5G coverage, both of which blow the doors off dial-up, and the parts that don't can get Starlink or HughesNet.
 
Someone hell bent on getting online thru dialup just to use AOL email is paying a premium if paying for a land line and service fees.
Well, I pay about $180/month for two iPhones and ~$200/month for broadband cable. Compared to that, $60/month for a landline and probably a similar amount for a good paid dial up plan actually is considerably more affordable on paper. It also is considerably less fast and considerably less reliable, however.

I lucked out. AT&T ran fiber last year along the utility poles near the place I rent. So I'm in bliss with mah gigabit fiber. Only downside is that I'm hamstrung by AT&T's TOS and equipment. Even though I'm on an unshared gigabit fiber connection, they still won't let me have any servers unless I pay 10x as much for their "business" line ... which is exactly the same as their normal one, but more expensive.
What would happen if you tried to have a server anyway? Would they terminate your service and send the FBI or whatever after you?

Still better than the Comcast I had. That stupid thing went down every time a squirrel farted.
Mediacom is worse! It's down more often than it's up sometimes, and I think we're only getting about 1/10th the speed we're paying for. I'll have to check.

c
 
I like wires. The more wires the better I feel.
My dad worked the majority of his adult life with the 802.11 forum, specifically ethernet. :) His group tried real hard to get ethernet to be the standard for housing, automobiles, and aircraft. Back in the 1990s they were already talking about running ethernet to every home and having what we now call IoT, with their goal to have power-over-ethernet for most items in your house (lights, most electronics, small appliances, etc.) Would've largely replaced the standard power plug. Unfortunately it never really took off. When AT&T was running unshielded copper everywhere, they tried to convince them to run ethernet instead. Unfortunately AT&T doubled-down on traditional unshielded copper pairs, even when they were given a crap ton of Federal money via the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Now it's mostly used for things like wifi routers and modern IP phones, which is a shame. We could have the equivalent of Philips Hues back in the '90s with no need for proprietary home automation adapters, protocols, or software. When I look at Japan and South Korea where a ton of homes have ethernet built in with highspeed internet ... ugh. What could have been.
 
Well, I've been making sure that in every house I've been in for the past decade, it's had cat5e drops in each room, and PoE provided from the switch. In my latest place, there's no phone jacks in most parts of the house anymore, but some rooms have 5 or 6 ethernet jacks. I'm considering finding or wiring up some PoE->USB-C-PD adapters for the places where Ethernet isn't actually needed.
Oh yeah; and I've had symmetric gigabit from OC for years now too :D And I think I've got about 15 services hanging off of it (only a single IP though, so vhosting is definitely helping).
I don't know what AT&T is thinking (other than money grab for Business services) -- the entire "server" line is completely blurred today, as there's all sorts of consumer IoT/app/cloud stuff that essentially runs a server off your home IP and is constantly streaming data off to multiple remote addresses. It's not like someone's going to be using a consumer subscriber line to run their own AOL replacement (although if I got a few land lines, I could probably do that too).
 
If I'm ever able to afford my own place, running ethernet is at the top of my list.

I'm envious of the municipal fiber options elsewhere, though. Mine is $100/mo for just internet. Elsewhere it's $70/mo or less, and not only do you get gigabit fiber, but you get local TV and landline. Some places give you a static IP at no extra charge.
 
If I'm ever able to afford my own place, running ethernet is at the top of my list.

I'm envious of the municipal fiber options elsewhere, though. Mine is $100/mo for just internet. Elsewhere it's $70/mo or less, and not only do you get gigabit fiber, but you get local TV and landline. Some places give you a static IP at no extra charge.
Around here it's ~$70 for internet, dynamic IP - $100 if you want local TV, $120 if you want base package and a land line. IP only updates if I reboot the FO modem though, and I've got scripts on the back end to update domains if the IP changes.
 
As Steve Jobs would tell us, the correct solution isn't always the one you think you need. Stringing wires is expensive and causes a permanent major maintenance hassle. A large majority of the rural US has LTE or 5G coverage, both of which blow the doors off dial-up, and the parts that don't can get Starlink or HughesNet.

Launching satellites is also expensive, especially when they're one SME away from being destroyed like what happened in 2021. It's also prohibitively expensive. $500 just to get going ($350 + $100 deposit, plus $50 to $100 shipping, then $80 to $120/mo (depending on where you live) for the service.

I think a national fiber infrastructure would be a better long-term solution, something akin to a national highway system. Build the infrastructure, then let anyone provide access (municipal, small ISPs, big ISPs ... anyone.)

THEN if anyone wants the convenience of a wireless connection, they can buy Starlink. But fast, reliable internet should not be held hostage by private industry that takes billions of dollars in tax money and doesn't expand their infrastructure or provide access to people who either live in an inconvenient (to their short term profits) part of the country otherwise can't afford it.
 
Roll of Kodak Gold 200 in my Nikon F right now. Portra 400 in my Nikon F3, and a roll of Ilford Pan F Plus in my FE2...
I have a roll of Kodak Tri-X in my Nikon N75....

Launching satellites is also expensive, especially when they're one SME away from being destroyed like what happened in 2021. It's also prohibitively expensive. $500 just to get going ($350 + $100 deposit, plus $50 to $100 shipping, then $80 to $120/mo (depending on where you live) for the service.

I think a national fiber infrastructure would be a better long-term solution, something akin to a national highway system. Build the infrastructure, then let anyone provide access (municipal, small ISPs, big ISPs ... anyone.)

THEN if anyone wants the convenience of a wireless connection, they can buy Starlink. But fast, reliable internet should not be held hostage by private industry that takes billions of dollars in tax money and doesn't expand their infrastructure or provide access to people who either live in an inconvenient (to their short term profits) part of the country otherwise can't afford it.
I agree!

c
 
Back
Top