So the other day, I heard a woman saying how she was going to get Netzero so she could have some cheap internet.  I realized it wasn’ the place or time to educate her on the incredibly frustrating choice she was about to make.

If you know someone who is considering dialup and they’re standing in front of you, ask them if they took the bus to meet you.

Them “Highspeed is so expensive so I’m going to get Netzero”
You “Did you take the city bus here?”
Them “No, I didn’t.  That would have taken too long”
You “Then don’t get dialup because it’s the same story”
Them “ahh, I get it!”

The basic problem with dial up is it’s slow.  Very slow; extremely slow; turtle slow.  It’s not a good deal just like a car with 3 wheels or a lame horse isn’t a bargain.  They won’t get you where you’re going until you put a lot of time and money into them.

Financially, the difference between the two services of dialup and highspeed is $10 a month.

That boils down to some familiar numbers:

• 1 month of postage service from Endicia
• 2 fast food meals
• 3 boxes of cereal
• 4 espressos at Dunn Bros
• 5 small regular cofees at Dunn Bros
• 10 boxes of paper clips at Office Max
• 20 cups of Ramen noodles

But it’s so expensive!
Not it’s not.  Ask for free installation and you’ll get it.  Comcast will give you 6 months at the fixed price of $19.99.  After that, you can call and ask them to extend the offer or you can switch to their “special” plan at $28 which still gets you 3mb downstream.  This package/pricing varies per state but that’s what I was quoted.

• Netzero’s lowest package says $9.95/month
• Comcast’s lowest package is $19.99/month

How slow is slow?
It’s slow it’s like comparing rollerskating to driving a car.  Now if you’re going 1 mile, it’s not so bad but most of us are commuting 5-20 miles to a destination.

Below are the numbers I got when I ran a route from Minneapolis to Downtown St. Paul on my GPS TomTom software I use on my Windows Mobile PDA.  A great feature is you can calculate your method of transportation to more than just driving.  It also has biking and walking.

• Driving – 14 minutes – Franklin to 94 to 10th Street exit
• Bicycle – 45 minutes – Franklin to University Ave to Dale to Concordia to Kellogg to 7th Street W
• Walking – 3 hours, 1 minute – Franklin to Seabury to East 24th Street to West River Parkway to Marshall Ave to North John Ireland to Kellogg

I also pulled an estimate from Metro Transit taking a city bus on a weekday afternoon

• City Busy – 51 minutes – Take bus downtown to catch 94 Express bus to Downtown St. Paul

How does this affect me?
Let’s say you were going out on job interviews and your first one of the morning was in St. Paul.  From the times above, walking would consume your entire morning.  Take your bike or the bus and you still are putting 2 solid hours towards your commute there and back making it hard to schedule more than 2 interviews a day.  This is what happens when you surf on dialup.  You’re crawling along and waiting for pages to load while your competitors are zipping all over applying for jobs and following up on leads.

3 items that affect your internet speed

1. Your internet connection speed
2. Your computer’s condition
3. Website’s layout and content

Here are the load speeds for MSN.com using the website speed test tool from Weboptimization.com

Take Away Ideas and Resources

Testing your internet connection speed is easy.  Just load up the tool and it will test your upload and download speeds.  I also use the one at DSL reports but it has more widgety options and I’m keepin this short.

Internet acceleration is fake.  The “technology” behind it involves loading compressed versions of images so pages “appear” to load faster