Mac OS X Lion Kills Off Analog Telephone Modems

Cult of Mac’s David W. Martin notes that another casualty of the Mac OS X Lion transition is the venerable analog modem, with Apple choosing not to write a driver for its own Apple USB modem, for sale as recently as September, 2009, for OS X version 10.7.

While Martin suggests that there are satisfactory workarounds, and approvingly cites a commenter on a HellDiverUK forum saying “Modem?… Last millennium is calling, it wants its outdated technology back,” and noting that Apple is telling us it’s time to say goodbye to the analog modem and look to alternatives like encrypted email, zip files, PDFs, or secure FTP.

That’s all very well, but what about the millions (literally) of users globally, including still some in suburbs of North American cities to say nothing of rural areas, who have no access to broadband Internet service, and who remain stuck with telephone dialup? Or Web workers who can’t afford to wait it out when their broadband service goes down, and need access to relaible dialup as a backup?

You can read Martin’s commentary here:
http://bit.ly/pqpK8B