Dial-up Hell

Had to get a quick connection set up for 10 days because I'm down my Grandmothers house for that time so the obvious choice was dial-up.....

Needless to say I cannot wait to get cable back. First thing is there is very few choices in the phone book, first one I find is Netzero. Need to install software, they can't simply give me username, password and phone to dial into. So off to Radio Shack to get the disc. I get signed up which takes Foreveeeeeeeeeeer. Finally get online and the connection is unusable. Dial-up is slow but this was beyond dial-up slow, pages timing out, pages taking minutes to load etc. Pages on here that are 10K after initial page load were excruciatingly slow. Besides that they added a whole bunch of toolbars to IE and I now have IE pro....

Gave up on Netzero AFTER getting the phone number for Earthlink which was the last dial-up account I had. They set me up pretty quick Username, password, phone number... 10 seconds later I was online. It's still dial up slow but at least it's reasonable.

Know what you mean Richard. I am not in Dial-up hell but in a less onerous place called the Dish Dungeon. It's faster than dial-up but the latency is a killer for most applications and costs more than twice as much as cable and three times DSL. Unfortunately where I am I doubt there will ever be fiber optic cables or anything of the sort. There just aren't enough houses on my road. Six houses along 2-3 miles of road. Where I lived in PA I was also out in the boonies but population density was higher and I lived off a road with probably 30 or 40 houses in two miles. Had cable since the house was built and had cable internet since about 2000.

We had dial up for 10 yrs--no access to anything else out here--Richard we tried netzero & I almost shotgunned the computer--about 3 mos ago Frontier made DSL available--this has spoiled the he!! out of my wife & facebook & as of late,me on this site--this faster stuff is the cats meow

Dish?

Broadband wireless internet would be much better than dial-up and should be available in most areas. Would need antenna/dish on the house though and still nowhere near as good or reliable as cable..IMO.

Sting wrote:Dish?

Satellite. My providor is WildBlue whose only claim to my loyalty is they suck less than Hughes. It's like choosing between a colonoscopy and having a couple of root canals.

We do have wireless internet available but it costs about the same as satellite and is slower downloading with a much smaller download limit. The only advantage is it doesn't die in bad weather.

what about cell phone signal ? I still have my cable that goes to my cell phone from the old days

the new ones are really practical, and if you get the hacked Iphone, now you're talking, you can hook up a USB cable to your laptop, and it's very acceptable

I used to use Netzero when I got my first computer in '02. Used them after I used up all my free AOL trials & canceled them ...

I concur - Netzero blows ... bigtime.

Luckily (I guess) I'm able to get Verizon DSL ..... the speed was fantastic when I first got it 6 years ago, but lately it just plain sucks. I think this is their way of forcing you to double your monthly payment for the "faster" service. My buddy is going through the same crap with Charter cable. Can't win around here unless you've got money to burn.

GeorgiePorgie wrote:what about cell phone signal ? I still have my cable that goes to my cell phone from the old days

the new ones are really practical, and if you get the hacked Iphone, now you're talking, you can hook up a USB cable to your laptop, and it's very acceptable

I have a free blackberry from the office. I know I could use it as a modem, the company's contract has unlimited data transfer here in the states. Just wondering what the speed would be like.

I have the "internet tethering" application and via bluetooth you can have a connection via cel phone. even a usb bluetooth adaptor can work.

cable modem is about fastest ive seen tho...

I feel your pain. No broadband here in the sticks. I use a Verizon air card in a Cradlepoint router. The router makes the whole house wireless withe the one aircard. Router is a bit expensive, but you get DSL speeds. Only kicker is a 5 gig cap . Had to give up my newsgroups for the most part.

you guys & gals make me feel antiquated--we have a pile of brush down by the barn w/ a blanket nearby for smokesignals--never a connection problem except when it's raining

I've had Comcast cable for the last 8 years, expensive but I'll have to admit it was great. Always fast, rarely went off and if it did go off it was very short period. Anytime I ever downloaded anything big the line speed was at a minimum what they advertised.

My Mom is in an assisted living facility just outside Philly--Thier T.V's are all on comcast-(sp)-same outfit??they must be real big

Does Comcast have an "emergency" dial-up number?

I have AT&T DSL and they have a dial-up number that I could connect to if I'm not home. Although, I think it may be either time or data limited.