Flutterby™! : Broadband defections 2001-11-07 18:04:36+00

Broadband defections

2001-11-07 18:04:36+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

People are rapidly moving from broadband back to dial-up.

Yeah, and more people are buying generic toilet paper instead of the fluffy kind. This isn't a technology trend it's people being tight in a recession (yes folks we are in one).

Yeah, but I bet more folks are dropping broadband than are dropping cable TV. It's not news that we're in a recession, it's news when the luxuries get dropped at different rates, just as it's news when they get acquired at different rates.

I can see my absence at recent Scotch Nights is letting our beliefs drift into disjunction. If we look at rates then we are looking for trends and at the end of the day Broadband is a growing market and cable TV is a shrinking one. No wait... we never agreed about this, which reminds me item #278 on my list of things to do is finalize some laguage on that bet <evil grin>

Another desperate reporter trying to make a story out of nothing. Yeah, times are tight, people cut expenses - big deal. You could just as easily spin this as a move away from cable back to broadcast TV.

I think I'd dump my home 'net connection entirely and go back to using internet cafes before I'd consider using a modem again. Yuck.

I agree that the article is a poor one, but I don't think there is

a swing from cable to broadcast. I think that particular $35 a month is no longer seen as a luxury. I don't think people are finding enough content on the web to make the extra cost worthwhile.

I like having the static IP (fingers crossed that it remains that way 'til I can pay a little extra to guarantee it), but my browsing styles are largely determined by factors beyond my connection, and except for some professional software development issues I think my tools are such that I probably wouldn't notice in my day-to-day computer operations if my bandwidth dropped back to POTS modem speeds.

What do you mean 'dropped back to POTS modem speeds'? That wireless connection you had made POTS look like broadband! I did spend a while with just ISDN recently. In Tennessee, it's still an excellent balance between speed and price (we get ISDN at home at about the same price as POTS). ISDN resolves two of the biggest issues with POTS: connection time (I hate waiting for modems to negotiate when I'm just checking email as I walk past the PC) and not being able to use the phone line at the same time.

Heavy bandwidth stuff - like downloading ISO images - can wait for the office. As far as cable goes, I would spend about the same amount of $$ on DVD passes at BlockBusters.

When we moved to Sonoma County two years ago, we were told that either cable modems or DSL were on their way momentarily. We looked at broadband options for the meantime and the choices were $380/month for ISDN or $560/month for T1. We really thought about the latter (when you're already up in the three digit numbers, what's another couple hundred?), but decided on ISDN because the T1 required a two-year contract.

And yes, this is for a home, not for a business. While we work from home (which is why we need the bandwidth), we get charged home rates.

Finally, about 18 months after we moved, cable modems finally showed up. We're now paying $40/month for faster speeds than ISDN. DSL still hasn't shown up in our area.

The Tennessee PUC was really playing hardball with ISDN, when I left Chattanooga I think it was $30/month for two B channels and a D, which was about the same or less than a POTS line. Of course you had to be able to get it (one of the games that the phone company was playing with the PUC) and pay ISP connection charges, but I think shortly after Highertech.net moved into the virtual building and got that killer switch they were selling ISDN for roughly the same cost and billing structure as dial-up accounts.

And yes, Eric, the Ricochet

was slooow, I guess what I've found with my web usage pattern in general is that if latency is greater than 200ms, it may as well be 15 seconds, and since few servers can do that for me my browser style is "spawn another window, go back to reading". It's not unusual for me to have 30 or 40 browser windows open. And other than web access, everything happens asynchronously. I mean, it's not like I want

to go back, but high bandwidth for entertainment purposes hasn't ended up being one of the reasons to stay.

Dan Lyke: ah, so it is just a habit born of slow connections, then? I've done that as long as I've been browsing the web. Right now I have... um... about eight windows open. When I'm hunting for Edgecase articles I can have fifteen or twenty, but that's about as high as I go.

I really don't understand these people who open one browser window as big as it will go and never open another. And I can't stand designers who expect that I'm going to do the same thing.