Consumer Broadband Evolution, Not Revolution

from the people-want-it dept

With every politician these days talking about how important it is for the government to stimulate broadband growth, they might want to look at the research. It appears that it's not the availability of broadband that's the issue any more. People don't sign up because they don't like the price, or they don't see compelling applications. However, there is clearly pent up demand, as many people say they're planning to sign up for high speed access in the near future. Online gaming seems like a major driver in convincing people to move to high speed connections. I wonder if the various government proposals include plans to get more companies to create online games? Probably not.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 6 Nov 2002 @ 11:47am

    What about faster dialup modems?

    They're supposed to come out soon with v40 (or whatever it was) dialup modems that will be twice as fast as the existing 56k, through usage of data compression.

    Will this not create an additional hurdle to broadband adoption? Or even spell disaster for existing DSL's that don't fare much better anyway.


    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Oliver Wendell Jones, 6 Nov 2002 @ 12:03pm

      Re: What about faster dialup modems?

      Even if they could develop a dial up modem as fast as my DSL line, I still wouldn't go back.

      Why?

      Because the cost of an ISP offering 24/7 high-speed internet with a static IP + the cost of a dedicated phone line would exceed what I'm paying for DSL, not to mention I would have to buy another modem, something I am reluctant to ever do again.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 6 Nov 2002 @ 12:31pm

        Re: What about faster dialup modems?

        I find dialup offers one advantage over broadband -- by keeping my line busy all evening, telemarketers can never get a hold of me. If someone needs to call me, they can just shoot me message by email or IM.

        And what if such modems came standard with the next generation of PC's?

        As it is, retail PC's come with rather useless DVD drives, when the same space could have been used for something like jazz drives.


        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 6 Nov 2002 @ 4:24pm

          Re: What about faster dialup modems?

          Jazz drives? I'd rather a 5.25" floppy than a jazz drive.

          link to this | view in chronology ]


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