The Rise Of Cheap Dialup

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the it's-about-time dept

A few years ago, when I needed a dialup ISP, I went looking for the cheapest one possible. I didn’t need any fancy features. I didn’t need email. I didn’t need web space. I didn’t need anything, other than a phone number I could call in order to connect to the internet. I found a cheap one, from a tiny ISP based far away from me, but it worked. I’ve kept that ISP for almost four years now, even now that I have high speed internet access. While I don’t use it every day, it’s come in handy every time my broadband provider goes out of business or has technical problems. It’s also useful for when I’m travelling. At the time, there weren’t that many cheap ISPs around, but ever since United Online (formerly NetZero and Juno) started showing that there was big demand for a cheap ISP, others have started to take notice. Now Earthlink is offering a $10/month dialup plan that comes with an email account and nothing else. It’s a bit surprising that people are still paying two and a half times as much for no particular reason.