The ISP market share for Dial up Internet has progressed for many years but there is a drastic decline since the rise in broadband Internet. However people have begun to realize the various benefits of it. Broadband or wireless connection is not accessible in every part of the world in such times Dial-up is the only means to access to the internet. Dial-up is useful in many situations and over the past two decades it has made immense progress.
THE PAST:
Dial-up connection was at its peak in the 1990s.Almost every person was using Dial-up modem to connect to the internet. People who used it more often and might remember the old methods of connecting and also the peculiar noise of the modem dialing up as u sat patiently waiting for the internet to connect at times it would take as long as 10minutes to connect. Dial-up made a steep progress with the invention of larger ISPs and consequently offering the ability to connect via their services and this meant dialing up within few minutes.
Before the arrival of broadband in the market, Dial-up was not considered to be slow as there was no competition from the market. 56k was faster than 26k and it was quite a growth to impress the consumers at that time.
THE RISE OF BROADBAND:
Broadband arrived with a bang in the market. Initially the speed offered by broadband connection was 128k, but it was a great improvement for people to switch to broadband from dial-up to this new world of high speed browsing. All of a sudden web pages were loading in seconds rather than minutes, it became a reality to download files with larger capacity. This also led to the rise of P2P sharing and the iTunes music store etc.
People obsessed with internet were all keen to change to broadband. It became easier to transfer files and make transaction. This advantage was mostly experienced by people who worked in offices and people belonging to the business class. But people were not sure whether it provided value for money. Broadband subscriptions came with a contract of 12 months to 18 months for a hefty amount. This kept away lot of people from upgrading. However a large section of the society was unable to access to broadband connection due to lack of availability in certain areas a problem which is present even today.
Dial Up TODAY:
Today dial up connection is not promoted with expensive advertising campaigns neither do people see it as a first option while looking for an internet connection, but dial up is very much available. Large internet service providers still provide dial up connection as a side service due to lack of availability of broadband at some places especially rural areas and for people who are on low budget.
Dial up is still in demand for various reasons. It offers anonymity that some users feel entitled to use it. It has simple pay structures. Dial up also provides easy means to connect to the internet without any contracts, activation charges. Few dial up connection providers offer service completely with no charges and this is something which appeals most of the people.
Dial up might have lost it charm but it’s not dead yet