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Old people everywhere:
I'm 100% certain that's why AOL dialup still "existed". Just charging old people for a service that doesn't get used. And now so many people have fallen off over the years that it's no longer profitable to keep the "service" going.
I know they used to scam people. Worled for Bell South. Had customer call needed me to setup his internet so that the 40 dollars he was paying AOL would work. After bit of probing, I figured out that Bell South was going charge him 80 a month for was the actual internet. All he was paying AOL 40 for was to use their home screen.
I ended up convincing him that he didn't need pay AOL a dime. That we would provide the internet home screen included.
So wouldn't surprise me at all if they were charging people for dailup they weren't using. Also this said thay were shutting down the program, not stop charging people.
TIL dail up is still a thing fucking crazy.
To be fair, I have rural family in areas where dial up is still their only internet option.
I would think DSL/ADSL should be available there, it's the same infrastructure and doesn't hog the phone line while using internet, so you can call and browse at the same time.
Dslhas a signal strength limit that requires stations every so many linear meters of line. I forget what that is (and the actual terms) but I did dsl tech support once upon a time. If they don't build one of those stations every like 1.5km or whatever it is, there is no dsl and they're not doing it to support 1-5 people paying them $40 or whatever a month
For one of them, yes, but it costs more than they want to pay.
For the other...sort of yes, but it goes out 50%-70% of the day for some dumb reason I've yet to figure out. The company has no plans to fix/improve it...and they're the same company offering the dialup backup.
I think a few others still offer dialup if they need it, bit idk how it works. I guess Amy dialup provider can work as long as you have a landline.