Over the past decade or so, we've heard plenty about broadband Internet connections, haven't we?

It was assumed that broadband access would have -- by now -- rendered dial-up obsolete. That hasn't happened, has it?

Why? There are a number of reasons for that. For one thing, not everyone needs the speed (and expense) of a high speed connection. Some people are content to check email, surf the Internet and do a number of other things that don't require huge volumes of information to be shipped here and there. Broadband for a lot of those users would be extreme overkill -- rather like using a hammer when a scalpel is needed. Dial-up, then, still makes a lot of sense to a good number of folks who want to use the Internet but don't give a hang about downloading huge files, playing online games, etc.

Also, there are a lot of people out there who live in an area where broadband Internet is either difficult to get or prohibitively expensive. Here in my town, we didn't even have DSL in a lot of neighborhoods until recently. Our cheapskate cable company doesn't provide broadband and I couldn't get DSL through AT&T until a couple of years ago. We relied on broadband for years because it was inexpensive and -- for the most part -- let us do everything we needed to do on the Internet.

So, there is still a demand for cheap dial up access to the Internet (that's particularly true when people are cutting corners in this economy). So, in comes Copper.net -- a company providing dial-up access starting at $9.95 for people wanting Internet services, but perhaps don't need to shell out the bucks for high speed access.

But if you do want high speed access, Copper.net has DSL service and satellite access starting at $19.95 -- not a bad price at all. Pay Copper.net a visit -- you might save a buck or two.