It sounds crazy, but 2.1 million people in the United States still use AOL dial-up to connect to the Internet.
Beep-beep-beep. Chcck. Eeeerrrhhrr. Bhrrrh. Hccccchhh-ZZzzZZzzz. That. They hear that.
That number was in AOL’s quarterly earnings report Friday.
It’s shocking, given that 70% of Americans connect to the Internet over much faster broadband. The average U.S. broadband speed is 11.4 Megabits per second. That’s 200 times faster than dial-up’s 56 Kilobits per second.
Even smartphones are more than 100 times faster than that.
That 56k modem connection essentially means 2.1 million people experience the Web like it’s 1995, with simple pictures slowly downloading top-to-bottom. Remember that?
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