On the 23rd of March, my free year of AOL is up. I do not want to start paying AOL for service since it has been so bad. I am trying to find some dial-up internet services that are reasonably priced, that do not lock you into a contract, and accept a month-to-month payment plan either on a credit card or bank account. Everything I have been finding right now is either a long contract of a year or more or they want you to pay a year's worth of service in advance. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. I am hoping to start switching over next week before AOL tries to charge my card for April service.

Well for dial-up, I've found Earthlink to be the absolute best I've tried. Fast, reliable (I've never been kicked off once) and a pretty good deal at 21.95/month for what they give you (10 e-mail addresses, 10 megs of web space, etc.). You don't even have to open their software to browse the web the way AOL and most other providers makes you...freedom baby :hammer::lol::D

Don't really know what is available in your area, but this web iste might help. It is a way to search for providers in your area, along with a price listing. Hope it helps. ISP Search (http://www.cnet.com/internet/0-3762.html?tag=dir)

You should try Juno. Juno is a little bit like AOL, but I think the service is better. It's cheaper, too. All you have to do to sign up is go to www.juno.com . There's an option on there where you can have a CD mailed to you or you can download the software yourself. Juno accepts payment by credit card, and they might have an access number available where you live, since they have a million of them. Hope this helps! :)

Well if you don't mind, let me give you a few pointers. I have been using the internet since 1995 and have had PLENTY of providers, cable, and DSL.

These are strictly my opinions based on my experience. Of course they will vary.

I would personally NEVER use a national ISP, ever. Why? Because the support is usually REALLY bad. For example, I had AT&T cable internet, and I talked to their support idiots all over the united states for a year. Incompetence. Nothing less. These people had no idea what they were doing, they had no local office, and you basically dealt with a nameless, faceless company with employees who didn't care. I terminated them 1 year later.

That is exactly the case with national ISPs. The #1 complaint I get at my job (I don't work for an ISP) is about AOL. Their connection is horribly slow, the interface is proprietary, and from what I've heard, their support is totally horrible. I have never used them, nor will I. In fact, out of thousands of our customers, only 2 stood up for them. 2, out of dozens upon dozens.

If you can, I would definitely get a local ISP. This way, if you have problems with them, you don't have to call, wait on hold, and if something happens, you can drive right now there and speak to someone personally. This way you don't get the $8-$10 an hour guy in a cubicle who hates his job, his boss, and couldn't care less about you.

This happens all the time. I know because I worked in tech support for 2 years, and when the employee doesn't care, you get BAD support.

I highly, highly recommend using a local ISP.

I would not pay more than $20, maybe $22 for UNLIMITED time. By this I don't mean 120 or 150 hours, even if you don't use it. I mean UNLIMITED, period. Don't give them a credit card over the phone. I had AT&T tell me 3 times they took mine off, yet continued to bill me. Have them send you a bill. Many ISPs will lie about this.

So my strong advice is to find a local ISP. Trust me, you don't want the hell of a national faceless company who hires kids for $8 to answer the phone who have no training. In fact, 2 local ISPs have lost my business because of incompetent support. You want to be able to go down there in person, not have to call an 800 # and wait on hold for some underpaid guy GUESSING on what the problem is, who really doesn't care.

Crack open the phone book, and if you don't mind, here are some pointers on what to ask:

1) How long have they been in business? I recommend at least 3 years, if not longer. Anybody who has only been in business 6 months, 1 year, or so doesn't have much experience. I signed up with one who had only been around 6 months, but his last job was starting up another ISP 3 years earlier, so I knew he had enough experience.

2) Do they offer 24 x 7 support? If not, what are the hours? Is it free? It should be.

3) If their server locks up or goes down at 3 am, how do they find out about it? Never believe "someone is always checking it." One word: LIE. They should have some method. Why do I say this? It happened to me once. I was online at 2 or 3 am and the server with my TRIAL account locked up. I had to call at 8 am and they had no idea it was locked up. What idiots. That coupled with other problems, I never signed up with them. So, ask what happens when the server goes down? And if they say "that never happens", that is 100% B.S. ALL servers will go down at some point.

4) What is their user to modem ratio? 10:1? 5:1? In other words, how many others are fighting for the same modem? This comes down to busy signals. 10:1 means more busy signals. I would NEVER sign up with anybody who has more than 10:1. Never.

5) What type of busy signal policy do they have? If they say "you will never get busy signals", try to control your laughter. Every ISP in the world gets busy signals. I had one potential tell me that they NEVER have this problem. I couldn't stop laughing. Oh btw... I did sign up and they DID have busy signals. I knew she was lying to me. So, if they get busy signals, how long until they add more phone lines?

6) What is the set up fee? I wouldn't pay more than $20, because setting up a dial up account on unix takes 5 minutes. That means about $5 per minute. No set up fee is better. Also, most GOOD ISPs will let you go month to month. Some will offer 6 months or 1 year at a discount, which might be good. HOWEVER, I strongly suggest NOT signing up for anything more than a month or two at the beginning. Last thing you need is a 1 year contact with a sucky ISP.

That's pretty much it. There are many more questions I ask, but for starters, this is a good rule of thumb. The deal is, there are so many kids out there who throw together a Windows NT or Red Hat machine and become an ISP, without really having a clue what they are getting into, thats why experience matters.

I'm sure some have had great success with national providers, but again, from the customers I have talked to, national ISPs get the most complaints of anybody. Busy signals, bad support, long told times, etc.

I could give you many stories, but I'll just leave it at this. Hopefully this will give you some pointers.

Be very careful with your credit card though! I used AT&T cable internet (long story, hate them, want them dead) and they had our plastic on file for months and kept billing it, even after I told them to remove it. Not all of them will! AOL is REALLY bad about this type of thing too...unfortunately.

Sorry to make this so long! I had a lot of advice to give! :D

Originally posted by *Snowflake*
You should try Juno. Juno is a little bit like AOL, but I think the service is better. It's cheaper, too. All you have to do to sign up is go to www.juno.com . There's an option on there where you can have a CD mailed to you or you can download the software yourself. Juno accepts payment by credit card, and they might have an access number available where you live, since they have a million of them. Hope this helps! :)

Actually Snowflake, juno, netzero, bluelight, and countless others all used the same backbone providers. When free ISPs were all over the place (99% of them are gone now), if you downloaded their dialer and looked through their phone numbers, all of them used the same ones.

When I lived in Salem, I found a total of 5 or 6 access numbers. Out of about 4 free ISPs, 3 used the same numbers, 1 used another set of numbers. Why? Because you technically aren't using juno, bluelight, etc, you are using someone else, its just a partnership.

UUnet is one of the largest providers out there, and at one point I even went to their web site because they had a huge list of access phone numbers posted. Guess what? All of the UUnet (I think thats who it was) numbers were the same as bluelight and the rest. Hmmmm...

I used juno briefly, but I didn't like the floating tool bar. A guy at GTE told me how he got around it, which works, but I got cable by then so it didn't matter.

Most every free ISP is gone now though.

I think the idea of free internet access was great, but banner ads (which most used) do not work. Plain and simple. Oh sure some work, but in the big picture, they are a failure. That coupled with users cracking their dialer to remove the banner, and no more free ISPs anymore. <sigh>

Life goes on...

Originally posted by aaronw


Actually Snowflake, juno, netzero, bluelight, and countless others all used the same backbone providers. When free ISPs were all over the place (99% of them are gone now), if you downloaded their dialer and looked through their phone numbers, all of them used the same ones.



Actually, what I meant was to use Juno's premium service, which is the one you pay like $9.95 a month for. Should've made that more clear. Sorry! :hammer:

However, I think a local provider is the best. That's what I use, and it's only $14.95 a month and it's unlimited access. I hardly ever get a busy signal when I dial up, and if I do they have a back-up number I can use.