djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
 ·PHONE POWER
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T CallVantage
·Time Warner VOIP
 ·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | reply to AtomicZero
Re: Extra Cost?
quote:
Holy St. Francis! $54 per month? What for, what do you get for that type of money and who would pay for that?
I think he means AOL Broadband (AOL DSL). It was available around the time when virtually all of the telephone companies were selling DSL for $49 per month. It used a proprietary protocol. You could not easily use a wireless router, connect a game system, or anything like that. And it was buggy stuff. I was trying to support an XP system which simply could not run the newest version of their proprietary stack without crashing. Why on earth weren't they using standard PPPoE?
As a tech I understand why lots of people like AOL. I thought the idea of AOL DSL should have been a smash hit. But there was no way in hell I could recommend that service. Enabling connectivity only through the AOL frontend was a disaster. Even the most non-technical people I deal with end up wanting to use a wireless router to connect a laptop up or something later and it was clear the AOL service would preclude that. BYOA plus broadband was the only thing I could reasonably recommend.
Later they started offering a proprietary router, and then shortly after that, enabled PPPoE access, so AOL Broadband users could finally start using their service like a real broadband connection. Around this time DSL prices were falling like a rock, so BYOA actually became cheaper. But all of this happened what seemed like minutes before they announced that they would no longer be offering service. Of course, AOL then decides to raise prices of both dialup and BYOA. I watched a lot of people "learn to live without", facilitated by AOL's very own instant messenger service. Increasing the price of dialup service at this stage of the game is just ludicrous.
Using TWC to usher their dialup customers to cable sounds like a great idea, but I'm sure they'll find some other massive way to shoot themselves in the foot. I just pray that it doesn't come in the form of ruining their well respected Road Runner service, which so far has been amazingly unscathed by AOL's tentacles.
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