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I didn't know that AOL was still in business, ancient technology! :unsure:
 
Basil said:
I still have members registering with AOL email addresses.
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They must be as old as I am.
I'm so old I can recall the advent of the personal computer.
Never thought it would take off, same with Jet airliners and diesel locomotives.
Don't even talk to me about color TVs.
 
The people still using dial-up are the people in low income or rural areas that the broadband providers have chosen to skip over.

I used to use it until the company that I was getting it thru folded just before the whole pandemic thing. When you live in an area that the broadband providers won't service it was the one option people had - and now they don't. I didn't use AOL because it wouldn't work with the computers I had, but dial up was at least a way to check an occasional email or something. Admittedly it was becoming less useful toward the end because almost everything onlnine was designed around the assumption that "everyone" has broadband connections, despite reality not matching the assumption.

And yes I'll admit its frustrating to read the posts asking "who would still use that" written by people who are fortunate enough to have access to a broadband provider and assume that everyone else is allowed that same access. Outside of access thru work, my "ISP" is taking a laptop and driving 10 or so miles to a Starbucks or the parking lot at WalMart. So while AOL turning it off won't impact me directly, it will impack some people who don't have any other options.
 
equiprx said:
They must be as old as I am.
I'm so old I can recall the advent of the personal computer.
Never thought it would take off, same with Jet airliners and diesel locomotives.
Don't even talk to me about color TVs.
Click to expand...

The advent of the PC?? Shoot I first started back in the 70s with punch cards, still have a small deck I kept as a souvenir from years ago. Along with some green/white striped paper, and my first calculator than seemed really advanced because it could do square roots along with the normal +, -, x, and /, all for only $300 70s dollars....
 
YakkoWarner said:
The people still using dial-up are the people in low income or rural areas that the broadband providers have chosen to skip over.

I used to use it until the company that I was getting it thru folded just before the whole pandemic thing. When you live in an area that the broadband providers won't service it was the one option people had - and now they don't. I didn't use AOL because it wouldn't work with the computers I had, but dial up was at least a way to check an occasional email or something. Admittedly it was becoming less useful toward the end because almost everything onlnine was designed around the assumption that "everyone" has broadband connections, despite reality not matching the assumption.

And yes I'll admit its frustrating to read the posts asking "who would still use that" written by people who are fortunate enough to have access to a broadband provider and assume that everyone else is allowed that same access. Outside of access thru work, my "ISP" is taking a laptop and driving 10 or so miles to a Starbucks or the parking lot at WalMart. So while AOL turning it off won't impact me directly, it will impack some people who don't have any other options.
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Here in Calif, AT&T has sent out a notice that they want to stop providing landlines as the "carrier of last resort." If approved by our California Public Utilities commission (CPUC), it would end landlines in Calif and make everyone use cellular. While cellular is available in most of the state, it's not everywhere.
 
John Turney said:
Here in Calif, AT&T has sent out a notice that they want to stop providing landlines as the "carrier of last resort." If approved by our California Public Utilities commission (CPUC), it would end landlines in Calif and make everyone use cellular. While cellular is available in most of the state, it's not everywhere.
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For years we continued to have a land line in case of emergency in which the cell service wasn't available.
 
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Basil said:
For years we continued to have a land line in case of emergency in which the cell service wasn't available.
Click to expand...

Because of where I live I have a landline - it used to be that nothing short of the end of the world would stop a landline from working since they were independant of all other utilities. Unfortunately in the last few rounds of bad weather that hit my area, this has proven to be no longer true.

The "landlines" are no longer a run of copper from your house to the switching office like they used to be (and the switching office had banks of diesel submarine style batteries that would keep the system alive for days or weeks). Now the copper runs only go as far as some sort of fairly local interconnect (which gets its power from the local electric lines) with a very short life battery backup.

And whatever system the interconnect uses for its upstream connection is also dependant on local electric, so when the power goes out the landlines stop working. Very frustrating and disappointing because I worked for the phone company when it was just the phone company, and we took a lot of pride in having a system that worked when all else failed.
 
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Basil said:
For years we continued to have a land line in case of emergency in which the cell service wasn't available.
Click to expand...
Our "land line" is now cellular. AT&T made us an offer we couldn't refuse. We have the same number and still use the landline phone and answering machine.
 
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