Only 9% of Americans were still using dial-up in a study last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, once the king of dial-up with almost 27 million U.S. subscribers at its peak, decided long ago to prop itself up instead on advertising revenue. Now AOL, whose Internet subscribers are still mainly dial-up customers, counts 6.9 million of them...

But even if faster service is more useful, the higher monthly bills are drawing scrutiny these days. Of the people who told Pew they still have dial-up access, 35% said faster service is too expensive for them. (Nineteen percent said nothing would persuade them to upgrade.)