Married to Their Dialup: Folks Don’t Want Broadband

We often hear how the US lags in broadband penetration, and C|Net has a piece today arguing that it doesn’t matter. Why?

Just last week, a friend and I were discussing the issue of broadband market penetration in the US. He’d returned from visiting his sister-in-law, and couldn’t talk them into getting DSL or cable internet. They had dialup, and a dedicated phone line for the computer. They were easily spending more money on dialup access than they would on a DSL connection. Yet they won’t switch.

My parents were in the same boat. For years they paid $25/month to AOL for access, and $18 to Qwest for a second phone line. My dad would spend a couple hours online each day, doing email and surfing the web. They were perfect candidates for a broadband connection, yet over and over they kept avoiding it. I pointed out that they could get DSL through Qwest for about $10 a month less than they were paying for their AOL/phone-line situation. About a year ago, they finally signed up for DSL as part of a package deal when they also dropped cable and switched to DirectTV.

Why are folks so slow to change? Do they think there are further hidden fees? Do they simply fear change?