ISPs slow to upgrade nets for dial-up

Although millions of users still depend on dial-up Internet access service when traveling or working from a home office, the benefits provided by the newest modem specification remain unavailable to many of them.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ratified a dial-up modem specification called v.92 almost three years ago, but two of the largest ISPs for business users still are not offering v.92 features.

V.92 gives dial-up users faster modem connections, faster upstream speeds and the ability to put a data connection on hold to answer a voice call, a feature often called Internet call-waiting.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Although millions of users still depend on dial-up Internet access service when traveling or working from a home office, the benefits provided by the newest modem specification remain unavailable to many of them.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ratified a dial-up modem specification called v.92 almost three years ago, but two of the largest ISPs for business users still are not offering v.92 features.

V.92 gives dial-up users faster modem connections, faster upstream speeds and the ability to put a data connection on hold to answer a voice call, a feature often called Internet call-waiting.

MCI has not upgraded its network to support the specification. Sprint has upgraded its network, but is not offering v.92 features to customers.

AT&T is ahead of its two main competitors, but is just now upgrading its dial-up points of presence and expects to have the v.92 feature available nationwide by the end of next week.

Qwest completed its upgrade last month, and offers v.92 features to business and wholesale ISP customers.

Level 3 Communication was the first national service provider (other than the defunct NaviPath, which closed its doors in 2001) to upgrade its entire network to v.92, in 2002. But Level 3 is a carrier's carrier - it does not sell services directly to enterprise customers. United Online, which owns Juno and NetZero, is Level 3's only national ISP customer offering v.92 features.

About 60% of 27 million home-office users access the Internet via dial-up, according to IDC. While many users are now adopting cable modem and DSL services, most are not using these services to access their corporate LAN. About 87% of users access their corporate LAN remotely via dial-up, while 67.5% use cable and 59.8% DSL, IDC says. The numbers are based on the firm's WAN Manager's Survey of 500 network executives, some of whom used multiple options.

So why would carriers ignore this apparent opportunity?

The carriers "look at all of their activities and how much money they have, and then prioritize what projects come first," says Michael Suby, an analyst at Stratecast Partners. "Some don't view this as the best investment in terms of return on the dollar, regardless of what might appear to be a small amount of work [to upgrade their network]."

Click to see: Dial-up dominance

Even though millions of business users depend on dial-up occasionally or on a daily basis, MCI, which operates the largest business IP backbone, says users aren't interested in v.92.

"We have not seen enough benefit to justify upgrading our entire network," a company spokeswoman says. "We have surveyed our enterprise customers and have not seen a demand for this service."

The carrier has maintained a hands-off position about v.92 for the past two years.

MCI says it is upgrading parts of its dial-up network for some of its wholesale ISP customers, but v.92 service support might never be available to business users.

Sprint says it just finished upgrading its dial-up POPs with new Lucent code that fully supports v.92, but it is not making those features available to any of its customers. The carrier says it is working with its largest wholesale ISP customers, including AOL, EarthLink and MSN, to support v.92 features, but "it is not as easy as just turning it on and off," a Sprint spokeswoman says. The upgrade is aimed at benefiting the carrier's wholesale customers, not its business users. The carrier has no plans to offer v.92 features to its business customers.