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Cheap Dial-Up ISPs Gain Ground
prostoalex writes "PC World takes a look at the proliferation of sub-$10-per-month Internet service providers and notices that the market for low-priced dial-up access is actually up in this weak economy. The low rates, with $4.75 per month quoted as the cheapest, are not abundant with features, and many of the dial-up providers don't give you an e-mail account or Web space, but it seems to be a plausible option for many. But reliability is a big issue, since 'about 20 of the startup ISPs [...] shutter within a year.'"
All you need is a way on.
As for e-mail, you can use Hotmail, Yahoo! or any of the other hundreds (thousands?) of free e-mail providers.
Or, use Cyber-Rights for free, SECURE, e-mail that isn't gleaned by the hosts for marketing info.
Newsgroups? groups.google.com
If you have a way onto the 'Net, all the other stuff can be had for free.
Tal
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Nothing new in the UK - we have pay-as-you-go zero subscription dial-up ISPs. Had them for ages, due to the funny way non-geographic calls are charged. The receiver gets a cut, that's how these ISPs make money.
And frankly, the average browser user still only eats about 4kbit/s of bandwidth - you don't need broadband for many uses!
In Holland we've had free dial-up ISPs for several years. They earn their money because of contracts of KPN, the main dutch telephone provider.
Here is a plug for the sub ten dollor ISP I use
www.flex.com
It kicks ass. Good News Access, webspace with no transfer limits (if abused reasonable measures will be taken).
Domain hosting.
No automatic billing (web form, pay as you go).
Nation wide Dial-up
My favorite though is Server side SpamAssassin filtering. I have my e-mail unobfuscated on Transgaming, and have signed up with a few companies, still no spam.
There is no Customer service (but great help pages and user supported forums). has a disclaimer saying that it is for the techsavy and will not accept current AOL users.
I currently use them for the occasional times I need dial up, and to host my email with good spam filter, and still don't feel too gyped.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Doesn't mean it ain't true :-P
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
There has been a boon of cut-price, unlimited dial-up and DSL accounts through a wholesaler called Comindico.
You basically set up an account with them, order so many lines at each pop and they place lines at each pop on a nationwide number or local number.
The VISPs can then value-add to that service (news, webspace, email) or sell it as ultra cheap internet access (as low as US$8.95/month in some areas).
While the quality varies from ISP to ISP, they are usually fairly reliable so long as your ISP has ordered enough lines.
I prepaid $54 for 6 months of Internet access from System Resource in Niagara Falls. They're a small operation - only serve a two-county area - but they're easy to set up, and they kinda-sorta support FreeBSD and Linux. (I can connect both from Linux and Windows.)
That, for the math-impaired Slashbots, is $9.00 a month. With no proprietary software (no software at all!). Take that, NetZero and your proprietary, ad-driven, Internet Exploder-based dialers!
I'm sure if you look, you'll find something similar in your own areas.
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
Dialup connections here in Finland have been free for years now, just use some public machine, in library etc. to order the service from ISP. Only sad thing we never got the free local calls system so we have to pay minute rate from the use which is something like $1/hour if I recall correctly.
Espically dial-up. I ran one back in the mid 90's and the 56K technology drove me to sell my customer base to a rival. non 56K dial-up is very easy to get running and maintain. if you can get users happy with 28.8 as a MAX then you can do it... espically cince T-1 connectivity is now cheaper at $690.00 per month for a 3 year lease PLUS your Backbone ISP fees... you're looking at around $900.00 a month for a cheap connection to support about 50 dial in modems. make that around 10 users per modem and you just might make it for that dial-in node.
if you HAVE to have 56K dial in lines then your modem costs just skyrocketed massively from $250.00 per modem to almost $700.00 per modem as well as your dial-in line costs. Making your operating costs basically double for that node.
I don't envy anyone in the dial-up biz anymore. customers calling to bitch about connection speed that dont understand why their wiring in their house or neighborhood is crap and causing part of it. and if you inch past the 10 users per modem you start getting complaints about busy signals.
undercutting to $4.95 sounds like a dot.bomb sales model. as that is making the margins too close for comfort.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
YOu want someting like Gric. I suggest that you do a google for Gric providers. IF in the UK I've found JetSet Rome really good
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
It's only 5.95 a month. I don't have any interest in them, other than being a happy customer. It's nationwide, but I did find one place they didn't support with local dial up: the outer banks of NC. Access4less.net
No newsgroups - Well, usenet has become very unimportant to most people I know, and those that do use it (such as myself) will probably use Google-Groups instead.
Most people don't know what newsgroups are anyway. They think the web is the internet.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
On what server? Using your *dialup* account? You can't be serious!
My journal has hot
There are several of these uber-cheap ISPs operating in my area. In fact, I have a neighbor who went with one particular one, which I was convinced was a bad idea. As it turns out, the service is reliable, decently quick (56k) and something like 12USD a month. Turns out though, one of the ways they cut costs is--no tech support. Whatsoever. If you need help, you have to call the fellow (it works like a reseller program, one guy resells for a national ISP) who set you up and hope he is clueful
As for cutting off the other things--webspace? It doesnt cost you anything until someone actually puts a website up. Of the thousands of customers we had when i worked at an ISP, only a bare handful of individuals, plus most of the business customers ever bothered to learn how to FTP (or "publish" if you're a frontpage person)
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I'm using NetZero at the moment. I'm looking for a dialup. Phone lines adequate to support DSL will arrive in 2010, unless some one with a lot of political pull moves into the hood.
This is hard to beat for low usage folks: http://www.access4free.com
- No ads
- works fine on Linux
- first 10 hours a month are free
- next 10 hours are $1/hour
- free again after that (max $10/month)
- no use, no charge
I setup my inlaws with a NIC (Larry Ellison's stepchild) and access4free for low-cost,low-maintenance access to email and IM.
You want iPass. Our company just signed up with them. It's pay as you go (so you don't waste money each month if you're not traveling). You do still get stuck with the hotel charges for local calls, but more and more hotels are using flat rates (ie: $0.25 per local call), and iPass has local access numbers almost everywhere. It beats fumbling with your dialer software and making it put pauses in the right place to dial your calling card number. The pay-as-you-go thing isn't bad, since the primary usage will be for checking e-mail, which, if your client is smart enough, you can do offline, with one call to send/receive all your queued messages. However, it's not designed to be your full-time ISP - it would cost too much - it's mainly for people traveling who have broadband at home, and need connectivity on the go.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
We have it and it works for our international travelers. iPass also has US domestic service, but the pricing is about $5/hr, which is a bit steep for anything other than occasional use. Unless you have a huge number of users, you probably need an iPass reseller, such as Worldhook.
For those who need international dialup, there is no reason to be paying a monthly charge, because nobody offers flat-rate international service.
...until the money grab happened. I was signed up with a local small ISP that provided excellent service for $9.95 a month. It came with POP3/SMTP/NNTP unlimited access and a static IP for running a server. I loved it. But after about two years, as their customer base grew, the service was harder to dial into. Then they expanded their modem pool (or PRI, not sure which) and the service was easy to dial into again. However, not long after that the customer service/support began to suck. They added a phone menu that made it harder to reach support and invariably got you to a clueless dork who couldn't trouble shoot a burnt lightbulb. Finally, after about 2.5 years, they merged with another ISP from a neighboring city that was growing. That ISP was soon bought out by a larger ISP in another state and BAM! the rates went from $9.95 a month to $21.95 a month. With no announcement. I just noticed that my debit card was getting more taken out of it per month after the big company took over. This big predatory company took over several of the smaller ISPs in my area that had been offering internet access at decent prices and jacked all of them up. Eventually, you either had to accept the $21.95 a month or do the ISP jig as new low cost ISPs came and went (every few months). I could afford the $21.95 a month but I did so grudgingly. Internet service shouldn't be expensive at all, especially now. The minute I could get DSL and actually get something worth what I paid for, I did. I am now a happy Speakeasy customer. :) Although I fear that they may fall victim to what my original inexpensive ISP back in 1995 did. They provide the least expensive DSL so far that is Linux friendly and allows you to run servers.
Just so folks know, the big bad ISP that took over my original ISP was CoreComm. In general, they REALLY blow. The last straw for me was when they took away my static IP without telling me. They also took the e-mail address I had since 1995 and "gave" it to someone else in their home city. Then they claimed that this person had the address all along which was complete bullshit. So... to anyone who works for CoreComm, I can't tell you how much your company sucks.
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