Why People are Still Using Dial-up

Although dial-up was once considered the wave of the future only about 10 years ago, many people have moved on to broadband services, convinced that dial-up is a terrible thing. You hear countless attempts by marketing reps to convince dial-up users to give up their awful services, claiming they have something better. Here is only a few reasons why broadband services are not better than dial-up.

*Availability*
Many types of broadband services are not available at all to large parts of the U.S. Consider this:
*Satellite is only available if you have a clear veiw of the southern sky--this rules out those who live in wooded areas or have frequent stormy weather.
*Cable, Wireless, Fiber optics, and DSL is only available where infrastructure has been built to support these services--this rules out the majority of rural areas that are too far from the provider's base.
Dial-up is available anywhere in the United States as long as there as a land line phone. There are dozens of providers, so you have plenty of options here.

*Price*
If you want to see a true competitive market, broadband is not one of them--unless you live in a major city. The beauty of our capitalistic market in the U.S. is that competiters keep the prices of goods in check. Not so with broadband services. Most of these broadband providers often have a monopoly of the area in which they are availabe, often leaving those who can get broadband only one or two options, and the price to be astronomical in comparison to dial-up. Here is some of the prices you can expect with broadband services:
*DSL--the cheapest broadband, sometimes as little as $15 a month. This is often an introductory rate or the price reflects a slow service. In order to get a truly "high speed" service, you need to look for the plans ranging from $30-90 a month or more.
*Cable--most cable services are faster than DSL, and the price is about $50 a month.
*Satellite--the most prepostrous of all services, these plans can be as high as $300 a month for speed comparible to cable services.
*Wireless--usually about $30-60 a month, but extra fees for exceeding usage limits (and this is very easy to do) can be astronomical.
*Other costs--and there always is some. Start up fees can be anywhere from $50-$200 for equipment, installation, provisioning of service, etc. Contracts and other fees are often included as well.
Dial-up? 10 a month. No contracts and fees. No complicated equipment. Set-up is free. Any questions?

*Reliability*
Like any service, some people have better experiences than others. Just because you are paying double or triple what you did to get dial-up doesn't mean that it's always going to work. In addition, many issues are much more difficult to resolve because the setup and equipment was much more complicated. DSL speeds can drop to dial-up speeds (or be only slightly better) for no apparent reason. Satellite has strict usage policies and providers often reserve the right to restrict your speeds to that of a dial-up connection if you abuse your service. Wireless services are infamous for their lack of dependability. If you happen to be in a bad area, your speed can be even worse than dial-up! As you can see, in some cases, it would be better to just stay on dial-up!

So why get broadband anyway? Here are the top reasons people NEED broadband:
*Gaming and watching videos
*Lack of patience for webpage loading

Is this worth the complications, contracts, and money spent? Dial-up might be slower (most of the time) than broadband, and has it's restrictions, but you have options. You can go to another provider if you feel you were mistreated, etc. Unless you want to drain your bank account on a complicated service or legally contracted to a monopolizing giant, stick with the basic, good old dial-up Internet.