Free v.92 Dial Up Internet
Please advise me on the following: According to information I have seen on the web, upgrades to V.92 are planned and in progress. As a customer and stockholder, are they? After 10 years of the technology availability, and loss of business to providers offering such enhancements, is it too late to get onboard, even in a limited capacity, or are we just ignoring the vast multitudes of folks who lack that availability to DSL?
What is the status of the upgrades to V.92? Where is it available? Is there an upstream cap at 22? Could it be adjusted to a more reasonable 33.6?
The integration of V.92 has been underway for 2 years now, and according to modems nos, no city of any size has yet to get upgraded, if I am wrong, which numbers in what area code are listed as V.92 compatible?
- Joe, March 3, 2007 (name changed for privacy)
Hi Joe, oh so many questions my friend. First, let me say that dial up internet wont go away any time soon. I like to view the internet access market in three pieces: city, suburbs, and countryside. You should also visualize the market by: homeowner, student, traveler among other things. Dial up is still practical and priced right for light user, travelers, and those out of range and out of service area for DSL and Cable. Satellite is so expensive for such little speed.
So lets agree that dial up will hang around. Does that mean v 92 is a hot stock tip? Well, whatever company your investing in, you need to look at their “product portfolio.” Are they a 100% dial up internet company? Are they 40% dial up, 20% DSL, 40% something else? Go and look at United Online’s financial statements, Annual is better but Quarterly for a few updates. Look at what they are doing, pay attention to “subscribers” year over year. These companies are looking for other “product lines.” Why? Subscriber numbers are falling. Doesn’t mean they are bad companies, just means that a big chunk of people want what — more speed?
Internet access is exciting and confusing at the moment. But one thing is for sure, if the consumer has the choice, they will want 3 mbps or more. Soon they will need it, because as a website developer, I also see that “Flash” and “Video” is ever more present. Heard of YouTube.com? How many high school and college students will watch YouTube videos on a dial up connection? Social Networking is when the user participates on the web site.
V 92, what’s the expected dial up speed increase? I can only dig up “wow huge increase 40%,” 40% of what, 28k or 56k? Nice to check email, but not my “go to” access preference. I just did a quick search and found this web page interesting as well, I pasted the info below http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/cn/Dialup/
“V.92 is currently the highest-speed ITU standard for dialup-modem communication over the public telephone system, using analog home-end and digital head-end equipment. It provides theoretical home-end maximums of 48k sending and 56k receiving.”
“IST’s objective has always been to keep the operational costs as low as possible. However, the initial and monthly expense of replacing the current UW analog head-end equipment with digital lines and V.92-compliant digital modems and dialup-server devices would more than double the current costs, and hence require a proportionate increase in the hourly rate. We do not believe that the realizable benefit would be worth the cost … a rate increase of 150% to enable a theoretical 43% upload-speed increase and 67% download-speed increase does not make sense.”
Me again. Is he saying that to go v.92, they would have to double the bill rate, say $6.95 per month to $14.95? Back to DSL at $14.95. DSL is looking hot this year.
After thoughts: I’m not saying that you shouldn’t run out and buy a v.92 modem. At least once a month I receive an email from someone who’s upset that they can’t qualify for DSL internet access, because of distance restrictions or the service is simply not available in their area. If you’re in this boat, then a v.92 modem will help, but it won’t compare to DSL or Cable internet access speeds.
Each of the major dial up internet service provider are rolling out v.92 access numbers. We checked in with Coppernet, some spot checking was done, and v.92 seems pretty wide spread to me. There are just way too many numbers to list. If your dial up internet service provider doesn’t have a v.92 access number in your area, give Coppernet free v.92 dial up internet a try.
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