DSL v. Dial-Up

Petty Torment or Meaningful Savings?

For a savings of about $34.95 per month, or less than $500 per year, our intrepid friend Steel is now blogging over a dial-up connection. He was on DSL.

What does this mean?

For one, it means that when Steel’s online, he can’t receive or make phone calls. Why? Because a phone call and an internet connection are mutually exclusive—you can’t do both at the same time. Given Steel’s delicate respiratory condition, dialup makes spending time on the internet a dodgy proposition.

I don’t know how his DSL disappeared, but I do know he’s recently been posting and commenting via dial-up. If nothing else, the time between the loss of DSL and Steel’s last comment illustrates how industrious and computer savvy Steel is… Note also, Steel has eliminated all previous posts. Some of TSD's history exists because I have begun backing it up.

So what does this purport for The Steel Deal?

For one, far fewer graphics. The amount of bandwidth it takes for graphical search, download, upload, and publish will force Steel to modify his blogging. I for one won’t mind this switch. I read TSD to see what Steel Turman thinks. More of Steel and less of the standard tripe peddled by the blog-o-sphere is good thing, I think. Still, Steel’s forte is finding images that convey, reinforce, and juxtapose his views, a kind of visual grammar that makes his points all the more memorable…

For another, I cannot find a way of conveying how I think this will affect Steel that is not overly simplistic... It’s not good. Yes, this is pure conjecture on my part, but I think part of Steel’s “personal crisis” is a loss of one of his key sources of self worth—not TSD per se, but of a rapport with a highly loyal readership consisting of friends, acquaintances, and strangers, all people who read TSD and come back for more...

There's an obvious way, to me, to cast this, but in the interest of what little "good taste" exists in this situation, I'll refrain.

Steel will not let dial-up keep him down...

That said, anyone want to take bets on how long it will be before Steel's dialup disappears?

Cheers,

Comments

[Steel]

Thanks, Moze.

I'll wager my dial-up is off in days.

[Carl]

Steel,

You can still count your blessings. Your Dial up service is probably good enough for 56Kbps. Good enough for Skype or some other VOIP connections.

I have been paying 90.00plus USDLS everymonth of the year during the past four years to Verizon for a DSL service contracted as 512K but measured at no more than 340Kbps.

Of course, Verizon in the US would never dream of doing me in is such a blatant manner.

The difference is that in the US there is such a beaut as the FCC and other institutions that I could turn to for redress.

Here unfortunately, Verizon is protected by the US Ambassador and He is more powerful than the local communications agency.

USed to be a time, I was paying 1300.00USDLS monthly for a dedicated 128Kbps partial T1 to the same company while the rental of a 45Mb T3 between New York and Paris was pegged at 4200.00USDLS yearly!!!!!

STEEL: Make the calculations and fathom the difference.

This is what I call FAIR according to the US Embassy standards.

May you get over your ''personal crisis''.