Opinions About Dial-Up ISP

[Berzerker]

Our contract runs out in March and I'm tired of our ISP cutting us off every 4 hours, but the price isn't too bad. How is your ISP, cost and service?

[loinburger]

I use Earthlink DSL, but previously I've used Earthlink dialup. I've never really run into any problems with either.

[DRoseDARs]

Dial-up = uke:

Once we tasted DSL service at my house, we never went back. In the rare ocurance that the DSL gets dropped, we still have our 56K modems to get email/news/blah, but DSL is great.

[Caesar the Great]

like everyone, once you've had broadband you can never go back.... i couldn't imagine life without my DSL modem (i love you Verizon!)

in the 2 years i've had it, my service has been down twice and only at obscure hours of the night/morning

its about $50 per month, but worth every cent (the music i pirate is probably worth more!)

internet access for multiple comps, no dailing up, no busy signals, no random drops, doesn't require another phone line, 15x faster download rates..... anything else i'm missing?

[The Mad Monk]

I have Verizon dial-up in New Jersey, $20, goes on your phone bill instead of your credit card. I recently downloaded SMACX. 135 Mb, roughly twelve hours, no disconnects.

If your've doing nothing for twenty minutes or so, they will disconnect you - or maybe not, I've walked away forgetting to disconnect, it will often still be up four four hours later. It almost never disconnects while you're active. I don't remember the last time it happened playing Diablo II.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I went from cable and fractional T1 (home and school) to dial up (law school apartment). I just can't afford broadband until I'm sure I have a paying job for the summer... oh, and the dialup is totally free.

[DinoDoc]

My college connection is silky smooth.

[Berzerker]

DSL unfortunately is not an option, thought about getting satellite connection with Direct TV, but that was too costly. I'll check into Verizon...

[pg]

i'd recommend looking for local mom and pop isps. those are generally the best. you will usually have to test a few to find a good one though. dialup can be better than broadband sometimes. i've known several people in california who had great 56k access. ping times as low as 60ms to california servers(usually 90ms-120ms though, less than 200ms to east coast) along with high transfer rates above 8k(iirc).

i'd stay away from national isps those are usually worse overall. aol/msn are ok but if you want the best look for a locally run service. a good local dialup isp will never disconnect you, cost less than $15(sometimes as low as $5 especially if you know the owner!), and offer tech support(but no fancy worthless features like aol/msn).

[Skanky Burns]

I wouldn't go back to dial-up even if I was paid to.

Surely there is a broadband service available in your area for a comparable price to your current dial-up service? Broadband in some cases can even save you money, considering you never have to pay local call costs just to connect to your ISP. These can really add up.

Make sure you exhaust all available broadband providers (excluding AOL) before even looking at another dial-up service. Even then, don't look at AOL.

[Ming]

What about a cable modem.... Beats the heck out of what you have.

[Berzerker]

We're rural, no cable available. We did go thru a local provider a while back and I was happy with the service, but they stopped providing the service and we went to another local provider and that wasn't satisfactory. Geez, some people are late-nighters, huh?

[Ming]

Just finished a MP game with War, Rah, and Hawk... still awake

[pg]

you could get isdn, it has a range of 50 miles from the local telco if you pay for repeaters. it can be really expensive though. i'd check isdn if i were you. some places it costs over a $100 a month(like here, !#*%$) but others it can be as low as $30!

[Alex]

Dial-up sucks and sucks badly. I recently installed DSL at home and I'll never get back to dial-up. Never.