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Moore’s MailBag - The “Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?” Letters
•Blogs •MooresMailBag •Comments •Tell-a-Friend
Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?
From Dave Barnes
Charles,
The answer to your question is: YES.
Now, get over it.
Move to an urban area with broadband.
Rural areas will ALWAYS be discriminated against. Servicing them flat out costs more per dollar of revenue.
Dave
Hi Dave;
Spoken like a true townie, I guess.
I'm a country boy. I lived about 2/5ths of my life so far in cities and towns, and at this point, I'm disinclined to go back.
I mean, here's the view from my office window:
I'm a 15 minute walk or two minutes by car from this ocean beach, which is never crowded.
I can walk out my front door and continue in a straight line for more than a mile without straying off my own property.
There's virtually no crime, good neighbors, and it's blissfully quiet and peaceful here. And it's paid for.
Would you move?
Well, maybe you would. Different strokes. But this all appeals to me. Urban life doesn't
Now, as to your point about servicing rural areas being more expensive, that's true. I can see (with binoculars) from my living room window the fiber optics cable that carries DSL to a community 10 miles away. There is even a spur of FO cable that's been hanging on a hydro pole at the local telco switching station (1/2 mile away) since April, '05, but the holdup is that the switching station itself would have to be replaced at a cost of Can$187.000 (per a telco employee), and the company dosen't think they can make a business case for it.
However, I'm sure it costs a great deal more per hookup to serve rural areas with electric power and telephone service than densely populated urban areas, but the government in its wisdom has obliged the utilities to provide those essential services to pretty much everyone.
My argument is that broadband Internet is becoming as much a necessity of life as power and telephone, especially if you run a business.
Or would you suggest that everyone in the countryside just pull up stakes and move to the city, for "efficiency's" sake?
Charles
Re: dialup
From Dave Barnes
Very nice view on the one day a year without snow.
Or would you suggest that everyone in the countryside just pull up stakes and move to the city, for "efficiency's" sake?
If you want high-speed internet service.
WiMAX might be a solution, but it still years away from reality.
You know I don't expect you to move. You need to push your legislators to fund (steal from the Townies) high-speed access for everyone. It would be a net benefit to the nation (or future states of the USA as we refer to Canada).
Hi Dave;
Actually, we're in the "banana belt" of eastern Canada. I bought a 4x4 truck in February, 2006. There were maybe 8 inches of snow on the ground then, and that's the most we've had since. We had about three (mediocre) snowfalls last winter that required shoveling the driveway, and I'm still waiting to try the truck out in some real weather.
This is in fact not a good thing. THe lack of snow cover resulted in a lot of winterkill, and we're having essentiallly s crop failure with wild berries this summer as a result.
Back to broadband; as I noted in my little rant, the provincial government is promising universal broadband coverage by the end of '09. Given the sparse population in this county, I figure we'll be close to last on the list, and the solution, when it comes, is likely to be wireless rather than DSL. We finally got cell phone coverage here in '06, and perhaps the same tower could be used (but what do I know?).
As for future U.S. statehood, there would be certain advantages. I'm rather partial to our status as a constitutional monarchy, and I like the parliamentary system of government, but that's been hybridized since Pierre Trudeau repatriated the constitution in '82 anyway, so it would be a less radical procedural shift than the case previous to that.
In the meantime, I would be all for a European Union style continental economic community, with real free trade, a customs union, harmonized immigration policy, and so forth, as well as currency union.
Charles
Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?
From retiarius
Supposedly, the savior for rural areas will be WiMAX or BPL (broadband over power lines).
Hi retarius
I've been intrigued by that concept since I first heard of it back in the '90s. It would at face value seem ideal for bringing areas like this into the broadband era.
I suspect that one of the major obstacles is not technical, but rivalries and turf protection among the players - power utilities, telcos, and cable companies.
Charles
Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?
From gary
The fact is that no designer can nor will design sites to load for dail up. Fact one; the numbers of dail up users are small and getting smaller every day.
Two; sites have so many advance capabities that a dial up can not handle. My suggestion is that you pressure your service providers and or government to upgrade.
Hi Gary;
It's still fact that some sites load pretty quickly over dialup, and still manage to include attractive and informative graphic content, and/or provide an option for dialup users to skip bandwidth-heavy intro anomations and the like. Apple's site was (relatively) much faster to load before the recent redesign.
The provincial government here is on the case, the holdup (as always) is funding.
Charles
Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?
From bertie
It's not true that "no" designer will design sites for dial up. I work for a large "not to be named" retailer and we do track dial-up connections and do make an effort to ensure that our online site is "dial-up" friendly.
I think the problem of broadband access for rural areas needs to be addressed on a national, regulatory bases. Unfortunately it is left to the "market." If that had been the case with electrical and phone service in the last century, rural areas would still be in the dark with no phone service.
Hi Bertie;
I agree. I'm not much of a socialist, but I think that unless we want the countryside to empty, essential services, such as electric power, telephone, and I would argue broadband internet, have to be provided at a reasonable price, and if utilities want to milk the fat profits of serving high population density areas, they should be obliged by regulation to supply broadband to less densely populated "unprofitable" areas as a condition of being in the business, just as is the case with power and phone utilities.
Charles
Wireless in Nova Scotia
From Carl:
Charles,
I live in a rural area in Ontario, but DSL came here about 3 years ago. Before that, I used satellite, which was not that expensive. Even today, I see it starts at $50/month but has some startup costs.
The other thing I see these days is Sympatico high speed wireless. This only costs a few bucks more than DSL and actually covers me as well (urban sprawl). I see that Aliant has a good coverage system in Nova Scotia.
This system has lousy PR. I don't think people even know about high speed wireless in rural areas.
Hi Carl;
As it happens, I was in our "local" (50 miles) The Source store yesterday after I posted the article, and checked out the latest price for satellite Internet.
The hardware is Can$400, plus about Can$269 for installation - plus extra for mileage to outlying areas like where I live - guesstimate another hundred bucks or so. Then there's a "system access fee" that appears to be somewhat elastic depending upon how long a contract you sign up for, but is nominally $Can$199.00. The monthly fee on top of all that starts at Can$59.95 for 150Kbps (which isn't super-speedy) and of course 14% Harmonized Sales Tax on the whole kit and caboodle. That's substantially bette than the last time I priced it, and I'm going to investigate further.
However, Wikipedia lists the following disadvantages of satellite Internet:
- Very high latency compared to other broadband services, especially 2-way satellite service
- Unreliable: drop-outs are common during travel, inclement weather, and during sunspot activity
- The narrow-beam highly directional antenna must be accurately pointed to the satellite orbiting overhead
- The Fair Access Policy limits heavy usage
- VPN use is discouraged, problematic, and/or restricted with satellite broadband, although available at a price
- One-way satellite service requires the use of a modem or other data uplink connection
- VoIP is not supported.
- Satellite dishes are huge. Although most of them employ plastic to reduce weight, they are typically between 80 and 120 cm (30 to 48 inches) in diameter.
The unreliability issue is a biggie for me, because I have to be online daily for my job. If I had to maintain a dialup account for backup as well as the satellite account, it alters the economics substantially.
There is rural wireless serving some areas of Nova Scotia (although Sympatico/Aliant doesn't offer it in this province to the best of my knowledge), and I'm guessing that will likely be the ultimate solution in this neck of the woods.
Charles
Re: wireless in Nova Scotia
From Carl Bachellier
Charles,
Aliant does, but it may not be in your backyard.
Check this link.
I never had problems with my satellite hookup. I had it through Bell and it was $400 for the modem and it hooked up through my existing satellite TV, which uses one of those small dishes. The UL was a dialup modem, and the latency made online gaming impossible. Other than that, it was OK.(still slow though by comparison to my 2.5 MB DSL speed.
In a major thunderstorm, we lose the DSL sometimes, so satellite isn't the only thing that goes down during bad weather. Here in Ontario there are a few two way sat services, but you are right, they are about $1200 in startup and at least $80/month. Since it is business for me, I would get the GST back anyway and write off the PST with the rest of the charge.
High speed definitely dictates where I live now. When we moved here, it was dialup, then satellite, now DSL. I wouldn't move to a place without high speed.
Good luck in your search for a solution. I lived in Mt. Uniacke/Newport for a few years back in the 70's. Right smack in the middle of a lumber forest. I recently found it on Google maps and it really hasn't changed much. I doubt they have high speed either.
Regards,
Carl
Hi Carl;
Thanks for the link and info.
I checked out Sympatico's wireless coverage for Nova Scotia, and it looks like there are only three locations so far. I'm at the red circle - well out of range so far.
The N.S. government is curently reviewing proposals submitted by six firms on how broadband service can be extended to all parts of the province, and expects to make a decision by mid-September. Some of the big players, including Bell Aliant and EastLink, want in on some of this action. There are also several smaller players. If Aliant gets the nod, one would assume that their wireless coverage will expand substantially.
One good thing I will say for dialup, it's slow but dependable. Sympatico is the only ISP available in this area, and I haven't missed a business day posting to the Applelinks news site since I signed on as a News Editor on Aug 10, 1999. I do unplug the modem during major thunderstorms, but the service has never gone down due to weather.
Charles
Does Apple Hate Dialup Users?
From David C
Apple's site design is beautiful to view over a fast connection, and I imagine it must be horrific over dial up. As a work around, you can query apple.com via the search engine of your choice and just visit the pages you need. You can also view pages cached by search engine as text only.
Ideally, bandwidth busting sites, like apple.com, should provide a minimalist version (this can be done by the designer with a stylesheet.) Unfortunately, most cool tools, like DevonAgent (which pull in pages you query for local storage and later reading), require high bandwidth to do their page scraping. The internet is becoming increasingly hostile to the modem using crowd.
Another possibility, if you can hook into a wi-fi hotspot or other hi-speed connection nearby, is to do your day's surfing at another locale and queue up pages for reading at home. After all, portability is one of the prime justifications for a laptop! Besides, you probably need to get out more.
Lastly, send Apple feedback at http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html with a link to this article. You are not the only one suffering this burden.
Hi David;
Thanks for the navigation tips. I'll try them.
I'm a big fan of DEVONthink, but don't use DEVONagent for just the reason you cite.
The nearest WiFi hot spot (actually the only one within about 50 miles) is at the local library 12 miles away. Works great with my PowerBook, but it's not a convenient distance to use on a routine basis, especially since my wife uses the family vehicle to get to work.
As for getting out, I'm partial to the beach (see above), which is happily one of the benefits of living here.
Charles
Charles W. Moore
•Blogs •MooresMailBag •Comments •Tell-a-Friend
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