I assume that fiber to the home is a good thing. And that if fiber were available most of us would take advantage of the increased speed it would provide.

Sunday I was at a family gathering at my parent's house. Our conversation turned to personal computers and problems with Internet pop-ups. Recently I learned about Ad-Aware, a program for detecting and getting rid of adware. So Dad wanted me to help him download this program.

Ad-Aware is a 1.7 meg file. My Dad has dial-up to AOL. As the download started he asked about the size of the file. I told him and he laughed, stating, "This will take about an hour." The download took only 10 minutes. While the file was saving Dad and I talked. Of course, I commented that he needed a high speed connection.

It turns out that Dad can get DSL. It would only cost him $15 per month. But then he would be a high speed AOL customer and that AOL would charge him $23 per month. That doesn't seem like too big a number. Half kidding I said that he should sign up right away. "Why, I've been paying $10 a month for Internet access for a long time and I don't want to pay more," was his serious reply.

I wanted to know how he could live with dial-up speed. His reply? "Oh, every once in a while I have to download a big file and it bothers me, but that doesn't happen very often."

My Dad could have high speed access to the Internet for $38 per month. He is a computer and web savvy guy. He runs a thriving ebay business selling used books. He is still working and writing excel programs for his business friends. Yet he does not need or want anything faster than his 56K modem. Not enough to pay for it, at least............
9:11:00 PM    comment []