Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Down With Dial-Up

For a while now, my family has had "wireless" internet at our home. Prior to this installment, we used to have dial-up. It was the first form of internet we had at home and it was great, being able to "surf" the web and do internet related homework right at home. The main use of the internet for my brother and myself was to check our emails and chat on MSN Messenger. Anytime we wanted to use the computer for go onto the internet, we had to get permission from our parents first, in case it wasn't alright to tie-up the phone line. Therefore, our typical time of day to use the internet was after 8:00pm, when the most common incoming calls were telemarketers. We had only one computer, so we each had to share it and have "equal" time on it if we waned to use the internet for our leisure and not homework related.
When arriving at the computer, I had to double click on the internet icon and then wait for the internet to "dial-up". Home access of the internet was great when we first got it, until it got annoying to impatiently wait for the internet to boot up, time after time. Finally, my family upgraded to wireless internet. This was a great change and improvement because we no longer had to wait for the internet to dial-up. It was convenient to access it at anytime, without tying up the phone line. I honestly do not think I would waste the money or time if I were to have to go back to dial-up. I wouldn't be able to have the patients for it. We have multiple computers at my house now, computer desktop and laptop, so we don't need the share the internet time. I feel "spoiled" and almost selfish, but with the improvement of the internet accessibility, it is just the way things are.
I think wireless is the most common form of internet and there are very few homes, that I can think of, that have dial-up. There are very few homes without the internet, and most of all do have wireless connection. This is Pelkey Jenson Gray, and that is what's on my mind.

2 comments:

  1. Hmm. Seems like the tides of change even hit Northern Maine, after a while! The same thing happened at my house, one computer, wait for dialup, only at night, intermittently get interrupted when calls came in, the whole nine yards. Only difference is that when we got wireless, we had it until the windmills on Mars Hill Mountain were finished, which screwed up our wireless. I forgot about those days!

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  2. Dial up. Gross. I remember when we switched our house from dial up to wireless...it was like, welcome to the real world. I teach online frequently, and getting rid of dial up literally cut my work time in half. Soon dial up will be a thing of the past...it's just too clumsy.

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