Despite its perceived extinction, a report produced by AOL found that nearly 2.1 million Americans continue to subscribe to AOL dial-up internet. The high number, found in a quarterly earnings report, comes as a surprise in our digital age.
AOL costs about $20 per month and accesses the internet at a rate of 56 kbits per second, which means that an average page (which is about 2.1 MB) would take more than five minutes to load based on calculations performed by the HTTP Archive.
That 2.1 million figure also includes what are perhaps the most well-known subscribers — those in an introductory free-trial period offered via disk in the mail. Also counted in the earnings report are those who pay reduced fees every month through member service or retention programs. Revenue per user averaged $20.83.
As you might expect, the popularity of AOL has experienced a drastic decline, though at a slower rate than some might be aware of. Previous reports indicate slightly higher numbers of subscribers (.3 million more) with rates steadily lowering.
A 2017 Pew Internet Project reported that 73% of Americans had broadband at home, a number that is up from 2013−2015, when it dipped to 67% and then leveled to 70% in the interim. 77% have a smartphone, and 12% identify themselves as “smartphone dependent,” meaning that they do not have broadband services at home.
Who comprises this core group of AOL supporters? While it is somewhat difficult to say, older people are more likely to maintain dial-up connections, as well as those in extremely rural areas. A Pew report from 2008 noted that 62% of dial-up users were not interested in switching. 35% of this group said that lower prices would encourage them to switch, and 14% would be convinced if broadband were available where they lived.
In August of last year, broadband speeds in the United States finally made a promising leap forward, jumping above 50 Mbits for the first time. With an average speed of 54.97 Mbits/s, this marks a 42% increase from the last year. This data is based on approximately 8 million daily internet speed tests conducted by Speedtest websites and apps, which makes it a pretty reliable sampling.
Despite improvements in technology and internet speed, some users are slow to adapt — and they’re okay with that.
Source: DigitalTrends
Image by Thiago A. from Brazil (Nostalgia) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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