I was watching some PeoplePC commercial, and wondered if anyone in the world still had a modem. It seems as though the advertisement for dial-up services on TV is larger than the advertisement for broadband services. I figured what better place to ask than here. If you vote for having a modem, please, tell why you have chosen so. I realize that the most obvious answer is price, so if you've got a different reason, I would love to hear it.

I'd've thought the most common reason was availability. Maybe it's just a Brit thing but broadband only came to our town like a year ago.

Yeah, it actually worked out cheaper for us to get broadband rather than keep the modem...

Broadband all the way, dialup is horrible and I could never ever go back to it.

I guess I'm not sure why you think it's a "choice" to have a modem. There are still a lot of places where it is the only option, such as my place... there is no broadband PERIOD. No cable television, no DSL, nada. These dialup companies seem more aimed at those of us who have to live off of satellite or local channels.

The kinda thing that Xenthos said. If I had broadband, I can sure as hell tell you that you wouldn't be seeing me here anywhere near as much.

Broadband! Huzzah!

There isn't a single house in this town that gets cable TV. No one has run cables. There isn't a single house that's near enough to a phone system to get DSL. You can't even get ISDN here. The next town north is getting wireless broadband, but it's been due "in about six months" since before I moved in here last year, and it won't reach me anyway. In a previous home, I had Starband satellite broadband, but the latency on that makes a lot of things impossible -- most FTP, all VPN, and any online gaming including MUDs.

Sometime this summer, Unicel is rolling out digital data via the cell network, which will finally be my almost-broadband solution. Probably a quarter of the speed of DSL at twice the price, but I still want to be the first customer they have.

So why live here? Quite simple. If you could see the six acres of my forest outside very window of my house, and hear the quiet and the birds, you'd know. Broadband will get to me a lot faster than forests will get to everyone else.

I've got 2mb and I'm still slower than Americans with cable who live closer to the servers.

I still have dialup, we can't get DSL where we live.

But they can two blocks away. >_<

I've got dial up right now...but tuesday I'm getting broadband.

I know, just find out where the lusternia servers are, move there and plus right in, 0 latency!

now you know why the servers keep crashing

People, broadband is available -everywhere-. Just not the common forms of broadband (eg cable, dsl). When I lived nearer to the city (which is strange, that I can get cable further away than before), I lived in a house that was about 4 or 5 houses away from cable-ability. So, we rigged up Satellite internet. Snap crackle pop, we have broadband.

So I agree with Kalidasha, it is choice and it is also finance.

Second, actually I've played Lusternia on a 28.8k Modem. I found no difference in gameplay between that and cable.

However loading websites -> no more modem.

I've had cable broadband for *thinks* Probably around 5 or 6 years. It's lovely and I could never pirate so many songs without it .

I dunno, did you read what Gwylifar posted? "There isn't a single house in this town that gets cable TV. No one has run cables. There isn't a single house that's near enough to a phone system to get DSL. You can't even get ISDN here. The next town north is getting wireless broadband, but it's been due "in about six months" since before I moved in here last year, and it won't reach me anyway. In a previous home, I had Starband satellite broadband, but the latency on that makes a lot of things impossible -- most FTP, all VPN, and any online gaming including MUDs."

When the available "broadband" is WORSE than dialup, it's not really an option.

Edit: a semi-good storm messes up our satellite television reception... what do you think that would do to satellite internet? Especially as we get storms here often.

Besides which, Starband (et al.) isn't really available everywhere. I couldn't put up the dish here without spending a few hundred extra bucks on tree clearing and installing a pole. Plenty of people around here don't have the southern exposure at all.

And let's not forget the $600 buy-in point and the ~$100/month costs. Plus it's way more sensitive to rain than your TV reception, Xenthos, because if that can mess up a big satellite beaming down, it's doubly going to mess up a tiny almost-no-power transmitter the size of a golf ball transmitting up. Almost any rain and it's out.

Even so, I had it for about two years. It beat dialup, as long as you didn't want to do anything where latency mattered. I.e., if you want to browse web pages, download files, get email. The latency was bad enough, though, you couldn't even play a trivia game in an IRC channel on it. Imagine a spammy fight where there's an extra 2 seconds between you sending your command and the result coming back. You couldn't really even hunt or influence on it, let alone fight.

Nothing better then 56k is available where I live.

There seems to be either a lot of people living in fairly remote areas, or really bad coverage in America.

I just assume that America would be good with that kinda stuff *shrug. I have friends in remote parts of Australia that still get decent satellite coverage and things like that *shrug*.

Australia is all flat with nearly nobody living near mountains, or oppresive treelines.