How many still use a dial-up modem?

[Elijah]

Hehe, I'm still behind the times (and out of money) so I'm stuck with a 56k dial-up (jurassic era*tm). If I finally got out of college and can finally get a job or business I'll use dsl.

[guitargeek]

I've actually never had Dial-up. I'm lucky.

I've had cable since day one : )

[Elijah]

Originally posted by guitargeek
I've actually never had Dial-up. I'm lucky.

I've had cable since day one : )
took me 3 weeks (downloads at night) to grab a 1 cd iso. *whew*. And soon I'm planning to use gentoo :D at least for debian it worked for me. You're very lucky you never had to experience this.

[bosox79]

I got Cable net access 3 years ago & I will never go back to a slow dial up connection:D

[Arjay]

Don't even have broadband in my area yet, for the people who have it some miles away it cost them £80 connection and then £27.99 a month to keep it all....that's BT for ya.

[BigFatJoe]

what is up with that last option ("Linux Rocks")? is it some sort of trick question?

56k here.

[BigFatJoe]

Originally posted by guitargeek
I've actually never had Dial-up. I'm lucky.

I've had cable since day one : )

wow, you've been deprived of a childhood. I grew up on 14.4

now those were the days.

^and thats b/c im really young. i'm just waiting from someone to scream out 300baud bbs!
; )

[YorkshireYank]

Originally posted by Arjay
Don't even have broadband in my area yet, for the people who have it some miles away it cost them £80 connection and then £27.99 a month to keep it all....that's BT for ya.

That's actually pretty reasonable compared to what i'll be paying for decent DSL service (Bellsouth) down here in Ft Lauderdale... i do know a few people back in England who have DSL connections and nothing but trouble... one was told today that his connection will be down for over a week and there's nothing he can do about it

[linux12414]

I use it purely for backup if my cable service goes out.

And brother, can you tell the difference. Could knit a sweater in the time it takes pages to load.

[bosox79]

Originally posted by linux12414
I use it purely for backup if my cable service goes out.

And brother, can you tell the difference. Could knit a sweater in the time it takes pages to load.

I agree, with dial up it takes days to surf the net ;)

[endorphinjunkie]

Living outside of the city limits limits your choices tremendously. One of life's little trade offs, I reckon. 56k or satellite. Even if I had the money for satellite, I would never pay that just to surf.:D

[Dun'kalis]

One of my friends just got a cable modem.

He downloaded a Gentoo LiveCD for me! Joy! In two hours!

We have a T1 or T3 at school, and its fast, but that speed is negated by...IE

100KB/s (thats kiloBYTES)

I'm still stuck on 56k. I remember when we upgraded our old 14.4k modem to a 28.8k. I was amazed by the speed!

Then 56k, which was even faster (this was 1996), but the net is much more clogged now.

[bs_texas]

I still have a Hayes 300 baud external modem I got back in college. It was SO cool. Could work from home and not have to go to a VAX terminal at school. A 9600 baud modem was about $500.

Had DSL in Texas. Moved to Missouri. Got DSL there also. Laid off twice. Back in Texas, out in the sticks.

So, back to 56K here.

I miss my DSL. :(

[hlrguy]

Originally posted by BigFatJoe
wow, you've been deprived of a childhood. I grew up on 14.4

now those were the days.

^and thats b/c im really young. i'm just waiting from someone to scream out 300baud bbs!
; )

Not that young, but when I started working, 2400 baud was the cutting edge. Still on 56K. I live well outside the city limits. The only option is Satellite broadband, and my company won't allow VPN over it, so 56K is what I have.

hlrguy

[Modorf]

I had a 2400baud modem. I used it to get to the NYC Board of Ed BBS when I was in grade school. That was fun stuff. Downloading small tightly written games that utilized the command prompt or minimal graphics. My dad actually got the modem because he wanted to connect to his office from home. When that burnt out, my dad bought a pair of Intel 14.4k modems, this was right before Intel left the modem market. I used that for the longest time as my dial-up to "the internet" I was using for a few months a service called (I can't recall) but it was run by AT&T, there attempt at creating an AOL like information service. From there, connected to a local ISP until they were jerking me around and slow, upgraded at one point to there 56k service and then got Earthlink DSL and now Earthlink Cable over TimeWarner. The cable seems reliable and zippy. Also a few dollars cheaper than the DSL. But if anyone remembers the movie War Games, that modem required the user to place the receiver of your phone on the device (the name is skipping my mind).

Nathan.

[3m00]

$20 a month vs $50 a month. Go figure. :(

[Elijah]

Originally posted by BigFatJoe
what is up with that last option ("Linux Rocks")? is it some sort of trick question?

56k here.
I just ran out of options to poll, so ... hehe :D

[Sonuby]

You guys with DSL:rolleyes: Dial ups not so bad.
Maybe its because I have Cat. 5 lines but Im ok with pages loading in 5 secs instead of 1.
Now downloading a distro thats another story

[rid3r]

i've got 56k, just out of curiosity, how much time does it take to download an iso with DSL or cable ?

[Can O' Beans]

I have cable, but my friend in Cincinati still uses a modem...


... with AOL :eek: :(

[retoon]

For what I use it for, its not worth the extra money to invest in either dsl or cable. I don't download distros because I personally would rather pay the small fee for prepackaged os's then spend three days with my dialup account active. I woudn't mind having faster data transfers though!

[b00zer]

i've got 56k, just out of curiosity, how much time does it take to download an iso with DSL or cable ?

I happen to be very fortunate with my cable and I typically am able to get just about full speed out of it as well. Its a 3 mb line and and i can generally download about 1.2 gigs an hour

[The Elf]

Never used dialup? You must be a true internet newbie! Broadband's only been around what, 5 years? :)

I'm on dialup. Cost is my biggest consideration. I'm at 14070 feet from the telco, Verizon claims they can service to 15000 but apparently I'm an exception, I fail the thorough line tests. Cable isn't here yet (mind you, I live in a city of 100,000 only 20 miles north of Seattle, a rather dense area..) so that leaves my options limited.

I am an informed dialup user though. There's direcway satelite which I've considered. $100 initial, $100 a month, 12 month contract (includes hardware/install.) People with satelite routinely get 1mbps down.. but only 30-50kbps up, and ping times are horrid.

I can get idsl for as low as $250 startup costs and $80/month. Ping times would be fine, speed would be 144/144

Recently, I've become elgible for covad sdsl up to 384/384 (I think that's the number.) This one will cost $550 startup and $120/month, but it's a fairly nice speed and the ping times are nice. If I purchase broadband, this will probably be the package.

[BaVinic]

56k whats that? oh I remember, that is the speed that they claimed a modem could go, only the FCC limits actualy line speed to 53K which in this area of the world is not even possible. if I am lucky I get 50K and that is pushing it. DLS/Cable? not available out here, some day. I worked for a year at a company who had a T1, now that was supposed to be fast ( for it's time) of couse the computers only had 10Mbit cards in them, so that also limited access.

I would love cable, but would gladly accept DSL, I have used both, and I prefer cable. I even tried DirectWay.

I never download any of my ISO's I buy them online, at www.half.com if I like the distro, I buy the boxed set. if not, I only lost 5 bucks. and did not spend 4 weeks downloading them :)

But, for what it is worth, I do not have a modem in any of my computers, I use a Netgear RM56 Modem Router it's a 56K ( yeah right) modem that is also a router and 4 port hub. which I have another 8 port hub connected to. it only really slows to a crawl when someone else is using the Internet here. other than that, it works great for me :) and no freaking WinModem to setup in Linux :D

I have to admit, this RM56 has been running almost non-stop for about 6 years now, and never a problem with it. it was a good investment.

Of course you know , now that I have said that, it is going to die ( :( )



BaVinic

[Elijah]

Originally posted by BaVinic

I would love cable, but would gladly accept DSL, I have used both, and I prefer cable. I even tried DirectWay.
Why not DSL? isn't that a lot faster than cable?? :confused:

[BaVinic]

Originally posted by Elijah
Why not DSL? isn't that a lot faster than cable?? :confused:

not from what I have seen, DSL is about half as fast as cable.


BaVinic

[moosedaddy]

I have dial-up. The cable ends less than 1 mile from my house and the phone company does no offer DSL.

There is a company that has applied for the loans to install a wireless tower a few miles from my house. Does anyone know much about wireless performance?

[JohnT]

I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere.:D
56k here at $14.95 per month and I know the owner, another Slack user. Cd's I get from Discount Linux CD's (http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/linux/index.php) at about $2.50-$6.00 per distro.

[anmaxp]

56k here .. sorry I mean "56" k... actually as they said before it will only get somewhere around 40 something in my city...

I WANT CABLE!!!!! and my freakin' isp claims that by the end of next month we will have an option to use cable... I just cant wait... just imagine all the wonderfull things and colors of the internet!!!
rofl

mhh btw the phone company offers dsl by around $150/month (without installation costs) thats way to much for me.

[TheCatMan]

56k does me fine. A year in student accommodation with a LAN connection by my bed gave me enough software to be going on with, well yes I miss the 10Mbps but a CD burner is a wonderful thing :D

[bosox79]

Originally posted by rid3r
i've got 56k, just out of curiosity, how much time does it take to download an iso with DSL or cable ?

it takes me a little less hour to get 3 650 mb ISO's:D

according to the cnet bandwidth meter I have a 2076 kbps Lan connection:cool: I love cable net access

http://webservices.cnet.com/bandwidth/results.asp?type=DSL&kbps=2076.3&ISP=&AreaCode=970

[sasKuatch]

You should have seen one of my friends who had to go back to 33k after using cable for 3 years. This guy was hooked. He was online all the time, never downloaded anything, he just opened it where it sat. The whole internet was his second hard drive practically. Now he uses Juno. I'm not a mean person, but for all the crap he gave me for using dialup, he deserved the crap I gave him when he had to go back.:)

"The only way I'm givin' up cable is when I die!" he says :D :D HAHAHA!

Oh, poor guy, I laughed so hard...

[cookiemonster]

I have been running wireless now for over a year and would hate having to go back to modem. I could never get a connection going faster than 36600. But then I also remember putting a 300 baud modem on my C64 and thought that I was really sailing when I was able to jump to a 1200 baud modem later on. With the wireless I have been hitting t-1 speeds regularly on downloads and have excelent ping times when I have checked them.

Dan

[Elijah]

interesting, 28 here still use a dial-up modem!

[Uberclocker]

I just moved to Pennsylvania. I told my wife "I dont care how good the house is, im not moving there unless I can get broadband."

the days of "EEEEE-AWWWW PING!! PING! SHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh"

are OVER.

[hkctr]

Originally posted by Modorf
But if anyone remembers the movie War Games, that modem required the user to place the receiver of your phone on the device (the name is skipping my mind).

Nathan.

I believe the term you are looking for is "acoustic coupler". That is what us old timers used before modems. For my first computer class, I used to have to write BASIC programs on punch cards, feed them through a card reader onto a cassette tape and them hook the cassette deck up to the acoustic coupler, dial the phone and wait for the carrier, slam the receiver into the acoustic coupler, push the 'play' to upload the program and then wait for a half hour or so for the output to print on a line printer.

[BaVinic]

Originally posted by JohnT
I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere.:D
56k here at $14.95 per month and I know the owner, another Slack user. Cd's I get from Discount Linux CD's (http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/linux/index.php) at about $2.50-$6.00 per distro.

Hey John T,
thank you for that link, it is just what I have been looking for. I ordered a copy of the the top 4 distro's :) now I can really play :)

Actually, I am in the process of forming a LUG here in North Port, and thought it would be cool to have a computer setup with each Distro ( well at least the top 4 or 5 ) and this site had everything at a great Price.

thanks again.

BaVinic

[cid222]

Why not DSL? isn't that a lot faster than cable??

no DSL is almost equal in download bandwidth but it only has about 20 KB of upload bandwidth

[bs_texas]

I heard that cable is blazing fast until a few people in your neighborhood also get on it. Then, it's like an old time party line and your bandwidth decreases with every new user and your computer is easier to hack.

just what I've heard...

(I'm at 56k. Nothin else available here. Can't afford satellite.)

[dev/brain]

Bah!!!!

In Aus, BB you pay about $70 a month for. Pretty reasonable. Oh wait, you have to pay for DATA!!!! Look, mah! This there pretty fing come with 300 megah-bites of free download! Its only charged by the megabyte after that.

The whole system bites a***. Now, ISP want to charge for data on a dialup account!

I got charged $160 for one months DIALUP access. That was with an apparantly 'capped' dl charge. But, TSN provide a data unlimited service (yay!), and they have my business.

And now america is adopting that strategy :)

[timbobagginsii]

Got cable at the moment, can only afford it because there're two others sharing the cost on the network. In a few months time when I move out I'll have to dig out my trusty old 56k and switch to text only browsing.

[vbp6us]

Lol reminds me of the infamous line from Jay and Silent bob strike back "WTF is the internet?" lol.


Oh brother. I started using the internet when it was in the 28.8 kb range. I remember it like it was yesterday. White US robotics box...mmm. Then moved up to 33kb then the big leap to 56kb for a while and then got CABLE and then i found out about linux and wanted to host my own server/site but RR wouldnt let me so i got DTV dsl and then they went out of business and now i have Cyberonic DSL. :D

MY internet Experience.

[vbp6us]

Originally posted by cid222
no DSL is almost equal in download bandwidth but it only has about 20 KB of upload bandwidth
\

Ahh thats where you are wrong spidermonkey. I have DSL w/ 657kb upload and pay $49.99/month.


:D:) :o :D ;) :p :mad: :rolleyes: :cool: :confused:

[nickptar]

I still use dial-up (just $7 a month between me and cable). In Windows, I have a 56k winmodem, in linux, a 33.6k standard. When will these <expletive deleted> modem makers learn that they lose no money by making drivers opensource, as people buy modems, not drivers? :rolleyes:

:o Strange poll. "What is dial-up" how can anyone say that. "I don't have a connection" surprising that even one posted (I know, public terminal.) "LINUX RULES!!" True, but totally unrelated. :o

True, with other people in the vicinity using cable, you all share bandwidth, so if you all do something high-bandwidth at once, it slows down. However, it's no easier to hack AFAIK, because even if you're halfway around the world you can still hit the same IP and breaking down a firewall is no easier. As for finding IPs by sniffing: why go to the trouble when you can just scan. (Pop-up ads to the contrary.)

[lenfick]

Posted by Modorf
_________________________________________________
But if anyone remembers the movie War Games, that modem required the user to place the receiver of your phone on the device (the name is skipping my mind).
__________________________________________________
It was an acoustic coupler and that's all there was in 1975. We thought 300baud was a miracle when I worked on the first "online library information retrieval system", Dialog.