i know, everybody hates dial-up, but my roadrunner trial for $30/month is about to expire, and it's not worth $45 to continue. i just wanted to be prepared, as best i can, for the transition to dial-up. any advice that anybody can give me, who has also made this transition would be welcome. i know that it will be slow. will i have to use netzero, people pc, earthlink, or aol? the company that i will get the dial-up from is going to be verizon. i have a compaq presario with XP, and 256 ram. kaspersky AV kerio 2.1.5 i don't use any real-time antispyware. is there a danger of "timing out" thanks. Ed James

Call your service and see if they have a retention department. Should have. Tell them you are leaving and see if they won't cut you a deal. Bill

the computer is just a luxury for me. the unlimited local calls that dial-up offers, are a necessity. speed does not matter to me. i have already been down that road with them. this is the second trial period that i have had with them. i put the hard press on them the first time, to no avail, they wouldn't budge. this time, i really don't want them anymore. Ed James

There are people without computers period & there are also PC owners with no internet access let alone dial-up. Therefore, if a dial-up connection is more than adequate enough for you who are we to say otherwise. But depending on where you are located, there are DSL offers these days that are cheaper than what most people paid for dial-up few years ago. You could look into that but YMMV.

I'm not syure what you're really asking... When you go to dial-up, you frequently get some bundled software (with a badged version of IE), account details (the number to call etc.). Once you have that you boot up with the CD (dialer, bundled software etc.) and install the dialer they will provide. OR... you merely create you own dialer - my preference, using their number etc. I'd avoid AOL if possible; absolute pain to get rid of later (by all accounts) if you wish to use another isp (dial-up or dsl). From my experience (both in the UK and USA) most dial-up service (offering "unlimited access...") tend to have either a time-on line limit - afterwhich you have to redial; or may actually drop you off after a predetermined/advertised time of no activity? And (in the UK at least) they also offer a pay by the minute service; this often being quite adequate for occasional connections - especially when on the road/away from base? Also with dial-up service I think they now tend "to frown rather severly" (and can get very awkward too) if one uses ping etc. software to automatically keep the line active... Some even going as far as dumping the account... The one advantage of dial-up is that you can use it anywhere? Whereas with dsl etc. unless you piggy-back on a wifi connection (one way or another - legal or not...), or arrange with another dsl use to join his lan... you can't use your dsl away from base?

"The one advantage of dial-up is that you can use it anywhere? Whereas with dsl etc. unless you piggy-back on a wifi connection (one way or another - legal or not...), or arrange with another dsl use to join his lan... you can't use your dsl away from base?" Only if the ISP has local numbers there, If he goes with a small locally owned ISP, they're not likely to have local dialup numbers anywhere else. Sure, he could make a long distance call, but that would be very costly. Wifi is everywhere these days, if he's on the road with a laptop it's easier to find a free public hotspot. -- to ejames82: You make it sound as if you think you can be connected to the internet all day. This is not the case with dialup. With dial-up internet you dial up, get what you need, and log off. stay way form peopplePC, AOL, and earthlink. If you use it for less than 10 hours a month I strongly recomend NetZero/Juno. They have a free plan if you use it for 10 hours or less per month.

Good point re' dial-up in N.Am... Guess being in thr UK (for now) I was tending to consider the UK model - where there is an all over access/dial-up service from various outfits (BT et alii). But then the UK is a little smaller than US/Canada (and England at least - if not the whole UK - will fit into Lake Ontario rather nicely...).