Dialup → How Much Longer Before Dialup Users Are Shut Out

I'm just wondering how much longer before those of us on Dial up is shut out from the Internet? I can no longer get 30 to 40% of the webpages to load now. Up to 10 & 5 years ago we could do just about anything online but now it's getting harder & harder to do anything online using dial up! I'm already hearing that within 3 to 5 years dial up will be gone!

I wonder the same questions sometimes.
At home we've also got dialup, as that's just about all that is available except for expensive satellite internet.

We're usually able to download email, the family loads the facebook site, and maybe a few other websites. They don't all load or work 100% all the time though. And not all at the same time either of course. We can't download system software or program updates as they're mostly just too big.

And then occasionally some relative will send a huge file or movie that they think we've just got to see.. Sigh.. then we have to go to the webmail and delete it just so the rest of our mail will then download.

I've gotten to the point of doing most of my web browsing, information searching, system and program updates, etc. at work as it's just too slow to do it on dialup.

Actually though, it has gotten better in the last month or two after changing phone co.s, as we were normally getting 28.8 or 33.6 connections, as soon as it was a close to 56k connection we'd lose it. We're now getting close to 56k connections regularly.
Tony

As the percent of dialup users shrink more and more sites are optimized for broadband. That means huge downloads.

A good analogy is payphone. They used to be everywhere, now that most folks have cell phones they are hard to find, forcing the remaining holdouts into a no win situation.

/tom

doubt dial up will be disappearing altogether.

"Broadband" might be available to everyone in Finland, but it sure is not in many parts of the USA. Especially if you live in a very rural area, dial up is your only option. On a fixed income, Satellite or wireless can be expensive. Cable is fine in larger towns but not in small rural communities...and you live a few miles outside of one.

My own IT provider is "dial up" only. Having a 26.4 Kbps means downloading huge files using Getright or a similar software. At least, the files can be gotten in small chunks over a period of time. But attachments in emails can be problematic.

Then of course, you're online for a long time downloading the files, tying up the single phone line... Or at least that's my scenario. I've been waiting until late at night to download updates, etc. that doesn't make it any faster of course, it's just no one is expecting a call or needing to use the phone then.
Tony

True. For awhile, we used to have an extra "computer only" line but eventually had to drop it and revert back to a single line. So now, for the same reasons like yours, I perform most of my online work in the late night tile early morning too.

There are advantages to having dial up, though, if you game online. Your ping and lag is far, far better than if you use strictly satellite....as my son found out playing WoW. He has his own dial up connection and used to play the game with it. Then he later added WB because of Blizzard's occasional huge patch downloads (among other reasons). Yet while playing the game, he found areas where it was better to keep using his dial up than with WB. Against the faster connected players in a Multiplayer game, dial up can be an advantage for survival.

He knows the reason "why" but it is one of those "go figure" bits anyway. Overall, dial up users have learned to adapt, overcome and "make do".