Exactly, who thought this one through? The reason people buy computers for the home is primarily to access the internet and to run some software for word processing, accounts, etc. Leaving out the most important and functional aspect of a product? That is no bargain/.
No, it probably support ethernet instead, as a) dial-up is starting to phase out, and b) the article points out that the distribution is tailored around web-based applications that require good bandwidth. Dial-up won't cut it for what the distribution is tailored to do.