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AOL disconnecting its dial-up
AOL sign
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TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: The CEO of Time-Warner is looking for a buyer ASAP. He wants to sell AOL's dial-up business. Yes, the dial-up business. Now, who would want that? Well, it turns out there are plenty of people who are still using dial-up. Bob Moon has more.
Bob Moon: If you're thinking this sound is soooooo 1990's:
AOL SIGN-ON: Welcome! You've got mail!
You may be surprised to learn AOL still takes in more than $2 billion a year from dial-up subscribers.
Parent Time Warner hopes to sell that part of the business off within the next months and focus on its content and advertising. A rival -- perhaps Earthlink -- might benefit from adding more than 8.5 million dial-up customers.
Forrester Research analyst Sally Cohen says the business still has a future:
Sally Cohen: The cost of dial-up service has come down so much over the last couple of years, and perhaps might continue to come down as the market shrinks.
Cohen says dial-up's good enough for those who just want to check mail or read the news. And in the LA suburb of Manhattan Beach, Rob Combs thinks it's just safer:
Rob Combs: There's one thing about this dial-up -- it is slow, but it's also a very controlled, secure connection.
Combs admits it would be nice to have broadband -- especially when I suggested if he missed this story on the air he could always stream the audio over his dial-up Internet connection.
Combs: Hahaha!
Perhaps that reaction explains why AOL is telling this business:
AOL SIGN-OFF: Goodbye!
In Los Angeles, I'm Bob Moon for Marketplace.
Yes my aol email is real but its just for spam because thats all aol has ever receives. Several years ago i was told by a technician that AOL does not have enough dial equipment so they do 'catch and hold', take your input or your output and store it to hard drive until they can find time to send it or process it. This is because the servers handling calls are too small and too busy. The other thing I was told they do is disconnect at random when all their lines fill up knowing everyone will not dial back in, especially after it happens several times. Ever wonder how there is just so many incoming modems at their end and you never get a busy signal? That was there fix several years ago when there was a big flap about constant busy signals.
6 months ago i would go on aol to play real time games and mess around on the internet, and the speed would be around 60000-98000. but now, most times when i get on aol, my speed would run on 12000- 18000 and it not enough speed to even play my online games like i used to do before. i think aol is doing something to make my dial up speed(and maybe other dial up users) to slow down. my mom called aol numerous times to see why is it so slow, but the aol people keep saying its my computer thats causing the problem which its not, and one time they said they where going to check the places where we dial our number to connect the internet and fix the problem( which i think they lied and did not do it) *aol i hope you get your act together soon, because it seem like you don't care about us, and it feels like you are just sticking your middle finger at us when we really need help*
I haven't seen any connection over 3,333 for more then 2 years and when it does connect faster it hangs then disconnects.
I then sign on again and see 28.888
My lap top was 32.200 and it's down to 19.200 to 24.00
After 12 years AOL went to hell right after Steve Case sold out
ALO tech support is just a name
i have had aol same acct since 1997. i use it both as dialup and even when on dsl at home with local phone companys service. i use dialup when traveling or when moving from state to state. hum interesting 56k modems have never been able to run faster then 45k-53k hooked up to landlines not because of aol but because of the phone companys to the best of my knowledge. true maybe i havent been on the right fiberoptic local services,so maybe someone has gotten a 55k conection. but in 11 yrs i have never been anywhere that phone lines connect higher then 45-53k thats always been the norn. the aol optimized was an attempt to bump up speed of display. i think people forget that your conection, be it phone call or computer is routed through many hubs.no average joe has a dirct-line to aol server or the red phone in the white house( its not walkietalkies ,cb or ham radio folks). you want a sorta directline get dsl=direct single line to your local phone company server,but when you proceed to other websites your on a highway to other servers and hubs.they get crowded traffic gets slower then bumped up again.(thats the phoneline not aol fault)dont blame aol for what they have no contol over.have friend in s dakota thats on directtv satilite pays $80mo,and has connection speeds that at times lower then 33k, kinda said for the price but its the only sevice in area.(no dsl no cable offered)so im letting them use my dialup but its long distance call on their phone. the reason to go broadband is because its frequency is reserved for digital info transfer.faxmachines and computers can send in digital. your voice has to be digitalized.(differance in cellphone vrs landline quality)i miss anolog quaility of cell phone could hear voices better then now.anyway sad to hear aol maybe giving up dialup.
Guess what little info I found, and itmakes sense! This has been an ongoing problem with many dial-up users of AOL, and it seems to be getting worse. My connection speeds were constant at 53333 in the past, but I am currently only able to get connected at no better than 45000. AOL has been little to no use at all in being helpful with this problem. Their answer it always "Sign up for broadband". It's no secret that AOL has been losing customers by the thousands each year, and they've been posting the largest quarterly losses in the financial sector as well. If I'm going to make the jump to broadband, trust me, it WON'T be with AOL. Oh, and there's been rumors going around that AOL is purposely giving you crappy connection speeds to their network... which they hope will get you frustrated and give in to joining AOL Broadband. It's all just rumors of course, but I can see how AOL would indeed stoop that low to get more of your money. They've resorted to deceptive practices in the past and have been sued for it (settling out of court to keep it hush hush too), so I wouldn't be surprised about it if it were true.
AOL is going to lose tons of money, I mean they use AOL dia-up to aggravate you into buying their highspeed, which cost alot. Why bother going to their highspeed when all they have done is caused so much trouble? MAKE AOL DIAL-UP FASTER AND BETTER and then we might enjoy AOL again.
Ok AOL for Dial-Up really needs to get it's act together, I try to install important updates or just want to have some fun and play games, but why can't I? Because even though I connect around 46666-50333 with the AOL Dialup, it still goes slow, disconnects, or just kicks me off! I have seen many users with this, no we will not switch to Broadband! We want AOL to actually work into the Dial-up and stop favoring Broadband, if not AOL is going to lose millions of dollars from dial-up users, and when that happens, who going to want to buy it? No one because they know they could spend their money better on dirt that AOL Dial-up. So all I and many other AOL fans are asking, please fix this slow and disconnecting problem. We would really like to have fun like the internet is suppose to be, not a nightmare.
