Based on a recent Pew Internet study, Julio Ojeda-Zapata reports…

Roughly 70 percent of U.S. adults used broadband as of May, according to recently released figures from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That’s up from 66 percent in April 2012.

Yet about 3 percent still are on dial-up connections, Pew said. Another 10 percent primarily use smartphones for Internet access, which Pew doesn’t classify as broadband but says is increasingly speedy and reliable.

In fact, dial-up usage has stayed at 3 percent since 2011 after dipping from 7 percent in 2009 and 5 percent in 2010, according to Pew, which recently released a “Home Broadband 2013” study based on a survey.

He interviewed a couple of people who choose to remain on dialup…

Marion Watson, a retired University of Minnesota staffer on a fixed income, says she “counts both sides of every penny,” and is happy to do without the high-speed Internet most consumers take for granted.

She has used a dial-up Internet connection — the kind that requires dialing a phone number and achieving comparatively poky speeds — since 1992.

And…

Likewise, Ann McGinn of St. Paul tolerates her slow but affordable dial-up service even though emailed photos of her beloved 5-year-old granddaughter take a while to load.

“I’m retired, and I’m not going anywhere,” the former attorney and journalist said.

McGinn, 75, is an online power user, after a fashion. She uses RSS, a system for keeping track of updates to her favorite sites via feeds, consolidated in a reader app called NetNewsWire.

I find folks who choose dialup to be interesting. Clearly these women have computers. Clearly they use the connection. It seems that price is a factor at least one of the dialup users. (The article points out that there are low cost options for better speeds from Comcast – and I’ll add from CenturyLink and other local providers.) But they are not alone…

In fact, dial-up usage has stayed at 3 percent since 2011 after dipping from 7 percent in 2009 and 5 percent in 2010, according to Pew, which recently released a “Home Broadband 2013” study based on a survey. …

During the recent U.S. economic crisis, about a third of dial-up users told Pew that they regarded broadband as too pricey, and about 1 in 5 said nothing would get them off dial-up.

The question is – how hard do we want to work to get that last 3 percent off dialup. I am a big proponent of digital inclusion – but clearly there is a group who has made an informed decision not to get broadband. The question reminds me of Dr Jack Geller’s presentation to the State Senate Committee last January.