Even as many subscribers have ditched dial-up service for a faster broadband connection in the last decade, making Internet use far more accessible and convenient, AOL's latest quarterly earnings report revealed that more than 2.1 million users in the United States continue to pay $20.83 monthly for a 56 kilobits-per-second Internet speed.
The earnings report, which the company released to its shareholders Friday, indicated that some of these subscribers have been availing of the dial-up service covered in the free-trial periods. Some, however, are in "reduced monthly fees" packages, according to CNN Money.
Dial-up speed is eternally slower, making it harder for users to watch videos on YouTube and Facebook, or see many of the GIF photos on Twitter and other websites. A regular Internet website takes up to five minutes to open in a dial-up connection. But as per FCC standards, the average speed most users contend with in the U.S. as of 2013 is at 10 Mbps, according to CNET.
Further, more than 70 percent of Americans use broadband Internet at home, according to a 2013 study by the Pew Internet Research, while the United States ranks number 16 across the world for having the best average broadband speed at 11 bps, according to Akamai.
The number of dial-up users on AOL is baffling, but apparently many remain with the service because of their inability to upgrade. It's either they can't afford it or refuse to make any changes at all, according to another study done by the Pew Research Center back in 2009.
There are some good news, however, as the AOL report also indicate that its dial-up subscribers are on the decline. In the first quarter of 2014, the number of dial-up users on AOL was pegged at 2.4 million, but by the time the fourth quarter rolled, the number was down to 2.2 million, according to Digital Trends.
