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Always-On Internet For Cheapskates?
chuck writes "I like my broadband Internet access because of its always-on nature, but my usage doesn't really justify paying $40-$50 each month for hundreds of kb/s when all I really do is read and write email sporadically, light web browsing and IM. Are there any options for cheapskates like me to pay less for lower bandwidth (modem speeds would be fine) but still have an always-on connection for cheaper than cable or DSL? I have a $5/mo ISP that I use when I'm out and about, and my 2.5G wireless phone can give me internet access on a shoestring (with free evenings and weekends) but neither of those has that always-on quality. Any ideas?"
Piggyback on your neighbor's unsecured WAP. :-)
Or atleast co-oping with some neighbors to save money.
feel like you're always on by having your computer connect as you enter the room ;)
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Make sure everybody calls your cell and use your land line for internet. I did that for about two years before DSL was available in my area.
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In the UK, over the last couple of years, there's been a rise in the number of broadband packages that offer fairly high speeds but with low usage rates (1-3GB a month). Some can be had for as cheap as £14 (~$25). Sounds like just what you need. So emigrate.
Except that a 2nd phone line+dialup costs the same as broadband, so you might as well get the broadband.
No.
There are a few companies that offer DSL/cablemodem service for $25/month or so, but not many. And there aren't ANY that do it for less than that. There's just no money in it. Hell, there's not that much money in DSL/cablemodem service even at $45/month.
I have a cable at 256kbps and 2Gb monthly data transfer for 9$ i`d be glad to pay just 40-50$ for a conection like your`s. For a unlimited transfer and 1Mb/s speed my friend gives 125$/month.
Think like a hacker, act like a hacker, but never become a hacker !
my usage doesn't really justify paying $40-$50 each month for hundreds of kb/s
Cancel your cable TV subscription and get BitTorrent. Your broadband cost will suddenly be justified.
The coolest voice ever.
on if you already have a land line or not, and if you're willing to have it tied up all the time. A second phone line + dial-up will probably cost you just as much as a cheap DSL would. Heck, if you don't have any line at all, it'll probably cost you more for a phone line + dial-up. 3 the tele monopolies.
Before cable modem was available in my neighborhood I actually put a modem in a Linux box and set up NAT. So one phone line provided access to like 4-5 PCs.
The only thing I didn't have was an automatic redialer but that wouldn't be too hard to find.
I've never had my DSL/Cable connection go out on . . .
You have to be smarter than the machine you're working with.
Unfortunately, most "unlimited" dial-up plans are actually hour-limited. If you read the TOU carefully, they'll tell you what "unlimited" means, but it's typically a high (but not impossible) number of hours per month. If you pass that limit, you'll either get blocked for the rest of the month, or charged a very large amount, depending on the ISP. Not every ISP will catch you, and those that do won't catch you every time, but if you keep a dial-up connection up 24/7 for months on end, any ISP you use will notice sooner or later and take some action.
The best thing to do is ask when you sign up for the ISP. They may have a more expensive dial-up plan that allows you to stay up 24/7/365. It might cost you $30/mo rather than $10/mo, but that's still cheaper than $50/mo broadband.
But then you're sucking up the cost of the phone line PLUS the dial up account. That would cost at least as much as cheap DSL.
some of them have slower connections that you can get for less money(though they don't like to advertise them). For example, the cable at home I can get for $25, or you can get a faster connection for about $40, of course YMMV
Monstar L
Many ISPs here in Canada (Montreal) have "lite" tiers of DSL/Cable that are about $19.99 per month Canadian. That'd be about $16 per month US.
BellSouth offers DSL Lite; a 256/128 dsl circuit for $24.95 per month. Perhaps your local DSL provider offers something similar.
Or, download NetStumbler and sniff out an open WAP in your neighborhood and leech bandwidth. There are about 5 I can reach from my house.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Find a neighbor who's got wireless and offer to pay half the cost. My landlord got wireless a few months ago. I was still on dialup at home at the time, but I had wireless in my laptop for hitting the hotspots. He told me to go ahead and use his connection, since he's paying for it anyway. (I did offer to cover half of the cost, but he simply repeated that he's paying for it anyway, so he didn't care.)
rolling out a cable over the Atlantic is going to cost
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You could try a single ISDN(56k), though it might be more expensive than broadband anyway.
Get dial up then have a dedicated 2nd phone line just for it, and leave it connected 24/7. I did this in college and never had a problem.
That would be nice if that worked reliably, but my experience with dial-up suggests that users are periodically kicked offline. Not exactly desirable for your purpose, but some view that (i.e. not always being 'on') as a security measure.
Your only other option is a dial up connection. If you want it to be dedicated however, you'll need a dedicated phone line. That will run ~ $16 - $25 Dollars US add in $5 mo. for your dial-up provider. Worst case you are at $30 best case $21.
The trick is to use a dial on demand linux box. You can have a script that will automatically dial into your provider. When you get kicked, it calls back. Couple this with an ethernet card and you'll have a gateway, and even a hardware firewall to protect you from all the evils that would have their way with your box. You can also use this machine for common services such as a caching DNS server which will speed up page load times over dial-up and as a mail gateway which also speed up perceived mail send times.
Around here, the cable ISP is $45 or so but we also have Verizon DSL which is considerably slower and only $30/month (assuming you have a landline already). What's your per month price limit, anyway?
Instead of swiping a neighbor's wireless, why not make an above-board deal with the folks next door?
If you're within 100 meters, you might be able to run a piece of Cat5e from your house to theirs. Offer to pay half of their cable Internet costs for access...
or, if they don't have broadband, offer them access to yours for twenty bucks a month.
have you ever thought of when ever you need the net, go wardriving? Or start your own wifi for neighbors. Get a T1 line and ration it out a squid server. Your neighbors pay for say 500 kbs. If you get a amp and a good omni you can server your whole neighborhood. or if your town has a wifi compinay leach from them. there a great part in this book http://www.gloop.net/books.htm
Why? $19.99/mo for vonage+$10/mo for dialup=$29.99/mo. Plus your neighbor will want payment($5). That's $35/mo. For that you can get entry-level DSL. Plus VOIP doesn't really work too well for modem data. It's Voice Over IP and a modem connection will probably drop on it anyway.
I'm not sure what selection you have with ISP's, but where I'm from, Ottawa Canada, all the Broadband ISPs offer capped connections that are about 5-10x faster than dial-up, for about $20-$25 a month. So, you get cable or dsl, always on, but slowed down, for a reasonable price. This is what I get, as the only reason to need a faster connection is to download movies and stuff. I even download Linux distributions, which are slow, about 6 hours per CD. But it doesn't really matter, as I only download a new distro maybe every 2 months.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
You'd be lucky to pay just $10 for a second line. After taxes and fees my landline from Verizon with no long distance and no calling features cost $28 a month.
If you are going to do that, you minght as well just run ethernet and share the cost of the broadband connection with your neighbor.
When I had dial-up in the dark ages, I used to keep it up 24/7 just by having my mail client check for mail every minuet. I guess you could also just run a script that does a single small ping every once in a while. I did get some nasty emails from my ISP, but they never shut me down.
Ask ISP's around if they still do ISDN. Granted, it's 128K, but since most everyone's broadband, the price should be cheap now. Plus, you don't need to light both B channels all the time. Keeping the D channel lighted at 9600 bps for small stuff will keep you online all the time anyway for monitoring (like POP or long, slow downloads), and for harder stuff (regular downloads, surfing, etc) you can light the B's up.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
What, are you talking about running a modem over VoIP?
Was it a bat I saw? Racecar. Stack cats. A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal--Panama!
Second line here is $37/mo and DSL is unavailable. Cablemodem is $42/mo + $10 month modem rental.
Try again!
I would suggest shopping around for cell phone plans. Some appear to offer unlimited data service for a around $15-$20/mo extra. I am not 100% on the details but it is worth a look. Have you looked to see if a open Wifi AP exists around you? PS: How can you be a Slashdot users and only use the Internet a little?
Okay, let's consider alternatives to always-on.
Autodial gets you a good portion of the way there. A good autodialer should take only a couple of seconds, in other words, not much longer than you need to focus on the screen anyway.
A cronjob can fetch your email periodically, so you can glance at your screen and see that you have mail. And you don't care if there's a few seconds delay on your outbound mail; let your MTA deal with that.
As for webbrowsing... hmmmm, that's a bit tougher.... Okay, here's one. Put in a proxy. If the net connection is up, then it just works transparently. (And by the way, Squid really does seem to speed up my web fetch times, even from the same computer!) If the connection is down, it brings it up, sure, but what to do in the meantime? Well, if you're visiting /., then it says "Nothing to see here, move along". If you're not, then it redirects to the same URL with a typo (so you'll assume you screwed up), and then displays a parking page. Okay, that sounds pretty authentic.
IM? Piece of cake: grab an IRC server and a bunch of Eliza-bots.
Okay, you're all set! Always-on experience, on a dialup budget!
Not sure if you are in their coverage area, but I set up my grandmother on Qwest DSL, and when asked if I wanted MSN or AOL as the ISP ($40/mo or somesuch), I replied neither, then they finally relented and admitted they could be a no-frills ISP for the line and the whole thing would be $20/month. That was $20 for DSL and ISP services.
Between that, and a hotmail account it beats her paying $25/month to AOL for dial-up.
If your mobile phone is new enough, and your operator supports it, you could use GPRS for surfing/email.
I'm not sure what the data transfer fees are for GPRS data in usa, but here plain random surfing/email gives me ~$5/month extra in my bill.
That would be near your budget if the pricing is same. Though I'm guessing you could even get it cheaper there if the operator just supports it.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Can anyone speak to using "Amateur Radio" equipment to do this? I think the only ongoing costs would be power -- up-front costs include equipment and licensing, but I think you could get there (modem speed always-on) for under $100 on a budget, and possibly closer to megabit for 1k USD. I also hear that a) you can get into big trouble if your unlicnsed, and b) can lose your license and/or get into bigger trouble if you abuse your licensed privileges. IIRC there are no-code packet license now, which means you don't *have* to learn morse code to pass. This also uses some already-established [public?] radio infrastructure, namely repeaters, if I've made any sense of the subject at all... IANAH (hammer). Am I way off here, folks?
Was it a bat I saw? Racecar. Stack cats. A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal--Panama!
OzForces offer 64K/64K ISDN for $14.99/mo. Of course, this assumes you are in Australia. If you are in one of the 24 other countries which use dollars, perhaps you should be a bit more specific?
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
Be happy with what you have. I just moved to Lebanon, waited 6 months for a "high speed" connection. That's 30KB/s downloads and 12KB/s upload for a whopping $120USD/mo. I'd take your connection and prices anyday. Funny thing is, this is $200USD/mo. cheaper than the dialup since you pay/min. here. haha...
A computer is only as smart as the person sitting infront of it.
in the uk, there are ISP's that offer 150kbps always on, unlimited broadband for less than some dial up companies (£14.99 per month, compared to about £15.99 iirc for aol dialup)
if your in the uk, those companies are tiscali, plusnet and probably cpbb.co.uk
From having had numerous friends and family members bemoan that "I just don't use the Internet that much!" as justification for not getting DSL/cable, in 100% of the cases, they've all had worlds open up when they saw how painless things became once their access was so dramatically faster. (Waiting several seconds for a single page like Yahoo! to download gets tedious quickly.)
Their faster access meant more Internet usage (now they're paying bills online, banking, and shopping for instance), which in turn meant they "needed" the higher speed conenction.
Very quickly, they realize how much more than just faster speed, the faster speed meant.
Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
Unless your neighbors have unencrypeted wireless and don't mind (read as "don't notice" ;) your usage then just get dialup and configure it for autodial and turn the modem noise down.
"Mo-dem speeds"? Wassat?
Maybe you could go ahead and pay the $40-per-month, but then sell the remaining bandwidth to your neighbors in an informal deal, reducing your total costs to about the same as cable. However, then you have to deal with customer service issues from your neighbors.
Table-ized A.I.
light DSL is usually maximally 128Kbits down, but it's ( a very gimped, usually for people that barely qualify for ) DSL.
they usually charge around 15-20ish dollards a month for that kind of DSL access up here in montreal, canada, and it would solve the always-on, cheaper for bling problem you're having.
As for me, nothing will make me part from my fixed ip 3meg adsl line for 60 canadian a month.
Peace and happyness to you, by LullySing
Speakeasy.net will allow you to sublet your DSL connection (not sure of any other providers that officially support this). You might look into just making back some of your cost by subleting out connections to a few neighbors over wireless. Offer a wireless connection and maybe a few other services and price according to how many subscribers you have (maybe divide the cost of the connection evenly?)
I have a friend who does this, and has had some pretty good luck. Biggest thing to watch out for if you do that is to have some sort of document outlining what exactly you offer (especially that you have no uptime garuntee, and what, if any, tech support you offer, and when).
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Besides it's practically impossible to find unlimited dial-up. They might say it is unlimited, but it is probably like 250 hours. 90% of ISPs are full of it.
Well, I did the same thing years ago (Earthlink, as it happened) and I worked out a deal with them where I could be online continuously, so long as I bought their business Web hosting package. Since I ran a small consulting business back then and needed the site anyway, it worked out fine for a couple of years. Then one day Earthlink terminated my service without warning, saying that I was an "account abuser" and that was that. I pointed out that I had an agreement in writing from their business sales department allowing me to stay on continuously. Didn't matter: apparently living up to contractual obligations wasn't part of Earthlink's business practices at the time. Some pointy-haired, boneheaded executive got it into his head that Earthlink would be more profitable if they got rid of all the "abusive" users. So some 75,000+ people got axed in one day, I was told. Really pissed me off, let me tell you. And as I was a full-time contract developer at the time, I regularly recommended ISPs to a lot of people. Needless to say, Earthlink got no more business out of me and I haven't had a good thing to say about them since. Their loss.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If your network uses GPRS (I'm told most 2.5G networks do), then you have a connectionless network, and in theory an "always on quality" is a basic feature. The reality may be that your provider forces a login procedure on you that prevents that. (Just as DSL providers mostly force their users to establish a PPPoE connection, even though the DSL link itself is always on.) There's probably a way around that, but I have no GPRS experience to guide you with.
If you have another protocol, then you might consider switching providers.
No... ;-)
That's Japan
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Here in Vancouver we have Shaw selling Lite always on cable connections that are "up to 5x faster than dial up" for $25CDN ($20.29 US today) and Telus selling regular DSL for $30 CDN ($24.35 US today) if you sign up for a year. Sounds like what you're looking for. Too bad your local companies don't have something like that.
Hopefully prices will come down for you guys. Prices may come down for us now that Shaw (cable company) is offering digital cable phone services in cities like Calgary, Alberta to completely remove Telus from the loop. Competition is good :)
Maybe I'm missing something, but why not just get a second phone line and leave yourself dialed in to your ISP 24/7? Surely that'll cost you less that $40 per month.
This isn't really the solution but it's the on we used 10 years ago to send email. Wow.. Things have really changed in the past 10 years.
Zoid.com
Broadband over Power Lines (usually BPL, my bad)
http://www.nwfusion.com/details/6121.html
I live in Serbia and pay 40$ for my 256 kbit/s cable connection. Average salary in Serbia is 3,100$/year. And you complain about 40-50$ a month with an average salary in US being around 36,000$/year?
This is not a plug. I'm just a happy consumer, er, I mean, customer ;-)
Broadband Over Powerlines
Cancel your cable TV subscription and get BitTorrent.
Except with many broadband providers, canceling your cable TV subscription will also cancel your high-speed Internet access.
..and if not, how can someone catch you?
-Valiss
Exactly. I was on "Unlimited" access with DelaNET. After being online for a bit, I started getting e-mails, something to the effect of:
"By unlimited, we do not mean unlimited. You are using your connection without limit, which is not the meaning of unlimited. You can't possibly use your connection 24/7. What you're doing falls under the category of business connectivity, and if you keep staying online, your rates will shoot up into the hundreds of dollars per month." (from joybenz@delanet.com)
I'm not kidding.
I wrote a script to stop pppd at 2AM and restart it at 6AM. No more annoying emails!
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Cox offers a "value" high speed. 128 kb/s up and download, perfect for what you're doing. It runs for $24.99/month if you have any other Cox services.
At many of the big computer surplus stores ( e.g. like Weird Stuff warehouse in Sunnyvale, CA) there are a lot of surplus office solutions that do pretty much what you want.
My favorite? The 3Com OfficeConnect 56K Lan/Modem. It's basically a small router with an integrated 56k modem (does PPP and SLIP), and a four port switch. 3Com model number: 3c886
I've seen them for anything between $5, and $20. They automatically dial the LAN when a network request is generated, and drop the line when a phone is picked up.
Just my $.02
"Don't worry about the problems you have in mathematics, I assure you mine are much greater." - Einstein c.1919
This assumes you use the *first* phone line...
:-)
I currently have no phone line at home. But I do have broadband
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
I am network admin in one of the larger volunteer networks in the area (Copenhagen, Denmark). We get internet for ~$8.7 a month (50 DKr). We share a 45 mbit line between 2400 apartments, of which 1400 have internet service. Commercial ISP's have about the same bandwidth for that amount of users, perhaps even less.
The cheapest DSL is still 3 times more expensive and I frequently download stuff at 20 mbit. We also provide TV and POTS, equally cheap. Switches in the basements, copper to the apartments, fibre between switches and buildings. Been a huge work, but quite fun and worth it.
You can get started with lot less, just share an single DSL between 10-20 apartments. Here such networks are all the rage, popping up everywhere anytime.
I use Cox Communications Basic service for broadband over cable. They don't list it on their site but you can call and ask for it. It's $25 a month and 256Kbps downstream & something like 64Kbps upstream.
yeah. that's cheap.
for $25 USD you can get AOL w/ unlimited time.
or even a cheaper alternative like $10/month dialup w/ unlimited time
and i personally (since cox has a deal with the local university) pay 25/month for cable, 5mbit down, 512kbit up, and virtually no low usage cap.
While it isn't "always on," the 2 second connect and authentication time lag makes you feel like it is always on. As well, since companies who provide dial-up also compete for ISDN, you are sure to get a very competative rate compared to broadband. Sounds exactly like what you want, and I would seriously recomment that you investigate ISDN options in your area.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
dialup isps are like that? Thats strange since the dialup isp that i used for about 8 years had no problem with me being on 24/7. The only restriction he had was 12 hour sessions. Just had windows redial on disconnect. I also paid 14.95$ a month since the beginning for that service, normal residential service.
I think your going about this the wrong way. While you might not NEED the speed of high speed Internet, you admit you want the convenience of always on service.
I would urge you to look in a different direction. Instead of dropping the HSI, (high speed Internet), I'd drop my analog telephone service and switch to a VoIP provider. Depending on the optional services and amount of long distance, you could save $40 or much more each month by using an unlimited VoIP package from Vonage, VoicePulse, AT&T, etc versus traditional telco rates. Since you also have a cellphone that apparently works at your home, there's really no downside to this scenario.
If you are dead set about nixing your HSI, your best option is to find an agreeable, nearby neighbor to share their HSI account. But if you do this, definately use wireless -- not copper -- to connect to his/her service. Differences in ground potential between houses can destroy equipment, cause a shock or even be a fire hazard.
You could use something like a Multitech RouteFinder RF500, or any other router that provides a serial port to use an external modem for ISP dial-up. This would give you an always-on dial-up connection. However, since a bare POTS line for your always-on Internet is around $22/mo, plus a bare-bones, unlimited dial-up ISP is another $10/mo, when you add in taxes and fees, you're maybe going to save $5 - 15 per month: not worth it in my view.
ISDN, at least in the USA, is probably not an attractive option, since most telco's charge per minute of use per B channel, plus the ISP's usually charge a higher rate for access. Where the telco does offer unlimited data service it's at a considerably higher rate than $50/mo. So you'll pay more for slower speed via ISDN.
I know several people who have "cut the cord" to the phone company and rely solely on VoIP over the Cable Internet and cellphone for voice calls. They save an average of $30/mo and are quite satisfied with the quality and reliability.--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
I had to cut down my monthly expenses and I was torn between loosing the always-on DSL connection I had or saving $30/month by switching back to dial-up. One day I was chatting with my neighbor and he was talking about his slow dial-up connection when I proposed sharing my DSL with him. So, he gives me the $15/month he was paying his ISP and gave him access to my wireless network (which is WAP encrypted and limited to specific MAC addresses). Now he gets high-speed internet and it was much easier for me to chooose to keep the DSL. Oh, and there is nothing in ISP's service agreement against me doing so.
I'm not sure where you live and who your baby bell is but....my DSL ISP, BellSouth, offers what they call DSL Lite, which is always on but has much lower bandwith for less cost, $24.95 a month.
. html
http://www.bellsouth.com/consumer/inetsrvcs/index
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
You better add up the total cost of dialup and an ISP when comparing it to cable or dsl.
I spend almost $10 per month less with cable that I di with a phone line and dialup.
I get 4MBits/second downloads with Comcast.
If you want cheap broadband, move to Saskatchewan. I get 1.5 Mb up, 300 Kb down ADSL for $25 Canadian/month, and you can get 64 kb download speed package (extra-light) for like $12/month. You just have to deal with the shatty weather.......... Older Price List for Sasktel
Pull my dongle!
Are there any ISPs still putting any effort into dial-up? By this I mean are there any ISPs rolling out v.92, compression proxies or anything else designed to produce a faster, cheaper dial-up experince? Or are they all just killing time until they can drop dial-up for (A)DSL? I'd be particularly interested to hear about any company in Western Australia that specialises in dial-up.
Depends on where you are at.
Where I live, the dialup+extra line is about $24/month cheaper than the lowest broadband.
I can get a second phone line for $6/month, but broadband prices here are insane. And you can only get it in two towns in a 70 mile radius from here. The cheapest I can get from my ISP (the only one around with broadband) is 256/128, for $40/month.
I don't know what hardware and OSs support it easily, but I think dial on demand would be the ticket. It doesn't seem to make sense to always tie up a phone line. If you are typing an email, start the connection and it should be up by the time you are done.
I understand ISDN dials and connects very quickly but it costs more than DSL in most places, last I checked, for me, it was $40 for the line and $40 for the internet service. Ouch.
And you, apparently, have no sense of humor. I pity you. It must suck to go through life without a humor muscle. Or is that a humorous love muscle? I always forget which. ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Yup.
There are, I believe, some internet gateways from the packet service. They'd be email-only, of course.
You *must* have a license. You'll need a terminal node controller of some sort and a basic 2 meter VHF rig. The whole thing is a hundred bucks if you shop smart.
But your communications will be very not private. They're also subject to the "amateur" part of amateur radio -- there's absolutely no guarantee your mail would go through.
Amateur radio is strictly non-commercial. Even a little text ad at the bottom of of an email would violate your terms of license.
Hammin' is very cool, and digital services are its cutting edge. But it's no substitute for an ISP.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
It's possible/probable that Vonage doesn't have enough frequency band to support a modem.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I live near Seattle, and everytime something goes wrong with our connection, I pine for the days of nocharge.com. Free dialup access for anyone who wanted it, and they encouraged you to leave it on 24/7. I could run an ftp server on my computer, I could connect my laptop on their local line from any of my friends' places and pull things off of it if I needed to...it was glorious.
Traffic started getting bad as more people found it, then one day it just stopped working for me, and everyone else I knew who used it. I tested it now and then for about a year, but it never worked again. Their site is still up, but I haven't tried in quite a while.
They claim to offer service in the "Northwest and New England" now.
They did seem to have a lot of service flickers, and they changed their username/password setup a lot. I always suspected it was because they made all their money through their 10 dollar tech support fee.
Point to point over carrier pigeon!
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Up here in Verizon land, they sell DSL for $30/month. And there are a handful of slightly cheaper "naked DSL" providers out there, too - but I'm not really up to speed on them.
I pay $70 for a Speakeasy setup with 1.5 down, 768 up, and a pair of static IP addresses. Since my wife has a home office that she needs to VPN to the main office from, and I self-host my website and e-mail, it's well worth it. If all I needed was surfing speed, I'd use the Verizon plan.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Why do you need "always on" for just email? I've found a mail server using my ISP as a smarthost plus dial on demand adequate for email and news for years. I only went to DSL because it provides faster Web access and doesn't tie up my phone line while I'm reading Slashdot (and it's only $12/month more than dialup).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
That's what i'm doing right now. using Mozilla Thunderbird to rss Slashdot.
Bullring
Over here in the UK we're currently plagued with cheap broadband that has download limits. 1Mb pipe, £14.99 per month - but you can only download a certain amount (usuall 2Gb). Great if you want always-on and fast transfers. Not so great if you like downloading Linux distro ISO files :)
If Cable/DSL ISPs provide an option of 'unlimited' or 'pay by volume of data downloaded/uploaded', it will solve the problem of people who would like a cheaper always-on connection. Again, the pricing needs to be fixed appropriately so that people using internet for just browsing and e-mail are able to save a lot if they choose the second option.
1) Find like-minded people close
2) Buy powerful wireless router + good antenna
3) Set up in person closest to middle's place
4) Split internet cost
5) All profit, baby.
Offer to secure your neighbor's wireless network for him if he'll let you piggyback, since your bandwidth needs are minimal.
When I was on Mindspring before Earthlink swallowed them, I had my linux server dialed into Mindspring 24/7, when the call was dropped, pppd would autorespawn and redial out. After a while, I would receive emails saying that it's against TOS to run an FTP server etc... which I wasn't doing, I just wanted the always-on type of connection. Mindspring's setup forced the modem to redial every 24 hours, but I was never denied service or charged for fully using the connection. They'd always quote me as using 43,200 minutes or more for that month, basically the numbers said that I split my time between being connected and dialing the modem.
However, the minutes aren't exactly accurate because if I was disconnected and redialed, their servers wouldn't update themselves that I disconnected, so for a short time, it would look like I was logged in twice simultaneously. This wasn't a problem until Earthlink screwed everything up, causing busy signals, and crap. After Earthlink came along, I got charged for simultaneous logins. I called the people and asked "wtf?" and they parroted the problem and TOS. I asked them what phone numbers were used on my account to call in and they said "they are all phone number whatever". I blew their mind and asked "How could my modem be connected to two other modems at the same time?". Either the person on the telephone understood and credited me the charge on the next bill or silence fell over the phone.
HetNet's cheapest ADSL is 13 euro a month. No idea why you pay so much for broadband.
I'm surprised no one's linked to Paul Boutin's How To Steal Wi-Fi (and how to keep the neighbors from stealing yours)
[o]_O
Why not get VOIP and get rid of your phone instead, you'll save enough money on phone bills to justify the broadband connection. Also host your own site if you have one, seems better to find a good use for the bandwidth you have, rther than to get rid if it altogether. M
You should check out the starter plans offered by the big telcos down here. THe biggest rip off I have ever seen.
Telstra: $29.95 per month 256/128 200 MB Download
Optus: Same
AAPT: Similar
My father in law signed up to the AAPT plan and now he is stuck on a twelve month contract paying through the nose for a measly 200mb per month. I use to get more than that with my dialup.
Here in New Zealand we have to modulate our own data transfer by beating drums down the phone line, and Telecom New Zealand still charges us a hefty surcharge for the privilege.
Seriously, acceptable quality dial-up Internet for $US10 sounds luxurious to me, while $US25 for 256K with a limit above 3GB sounds like science fiction.
Telecom New Zealand sucks arse.
If you're reading this, and you work for Telecom New Zealand, SHAME ON YOU.
When I had Bellsouth they sent me an e-mail saying I was abusing my unlimited hours. They advertise as unlimited, I pay unlimited. How can you abuse something that is unlimited?
They never took any action though.
Seriously, this may be a case of "score one for the mom and pop ISPs" here. Before I could get DSL or a cable modem connection here, I was stuck with dial-up and wanted an "always-on" connection.
I simply called a guy I knew personally who owned a small regional ISP and explained my situation to him. Despite him having the usual "terms of service" agreement telling you that "unlimited" didn't really mean the same thing as "always on" - he was happy to overlook my always-on modem connection in return for the business.
Especially nowdays, with more competition from the large, nation-wide ISPs and with so many people converting to broadband, the little guys left in the business *should* be willing to make some concessions at this point. (Hey, an always tied-up modem port by a paying customer beats an always unused modem port and no customer.) It really depends on if the ISP in question has more capacity than they're able to fill up, I suppose -- but never hurts to ask.
DISCLAIMER: First off, know that I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever played one on or off of TV. This comment is not legal advice or legal analysis, despite any evidence to the contrary, and any reliance you take on it is evidence of your own stupidity, and you assume the risk inherent in so doing.
But something I've heard about from law school professors (don't ask what I was doing in a law school classroom, I'm not a lawyer, remember?) is that we have a doctrine of adverse possession and its related cousin, prescriptive easement. Adverse possession lets you take ownership of land if you've been trespassing on it for 20 years if you have used it as if you were the legitimate owner for all that time. Prescriptive easements don't require exclusivity or possession - you just have to use property for a long time and then you get to keep using it in the same way forever. Also, the statutory period is often lower for prescriptive easements, like 5 or 10 years.
Enter the digital age. If you use your neighbor's wireless for 5 years straight, you could convince a (very gullible) court to grant you an easement that ensures your neighbor never gets rid of his wireless connection or tries to lock you out of it. And that burden would probably run with his apartment or home, so no future tenant or owner could lock you out of his wireless or cancel his Internet connection.
Yes, the non-lawyer in me definitely thinks this is a good idea.
Not to mention that your hand would get worn out even faster keying in Code than it does with broadband access. ;)
That's the single best solution I've read on this entire thread, particularly if it is not a violation of your neighbor's ISP's terms of service. There's nothing that says you can't be neighborly in exchange for a return of the favor.
modem speeds would be fine????? what do you use, DOS?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
We only have one ISP here who can sell DSL at over 256kbps. oh wait.. you wanted cheap too.. my bad.
For $29 dollars you can get 128k DSl from sympatico, without needing an extra phone line. Your paying $50 for dial up. Hmmm.
That' what my parents have, and it just what this guy wants. He needs to research local options.
I just saw an ad during a futbol game on Azteca America for these cards that sell you dial-up internet access by the minute, kinda like the pay as you go virgin phones, no contracts, etc. I'm not sure if anyone else offers this but it's a pretty good idea. 6 bucks for 500 minutes or 15 "unlimited" days, beats having to pay for internet shops if you're on the road and don't have an ISP. http://www.toditocardusa.com/usaing/preguntas.html /
Es que se me chispotio!
Again, from the RoadRunner Subscription Agreement:
2. General.
(g) Subscriber is responsible in all respects for all use of Subscriber's account, including under any screen name, user name or password by any person, and all use by others of Subscriber's account is subject to the terms hereof and the Terms of Use. For the purposes of this Agreement, all use of Subscriber's account, whether or not authorized by Subscriber, shall be deemed Subscriber's use.
Your connection, your responsibility.
sbc yahoo have been providing dsl for under 30 bucks for quite a while. Go nuts here.
I'm using, Qwest DSL and it's only costing me, $15.00 a month, of course you do need some type of email service and a friend of mine only pays, $6.00. ISP/Vip has a service for around $8.00 and it supports "OutLook". I don't know much about, Tech, I've just been at it 2 yrs. What is the difference between, Broadband and DSL?
OK, I didn't see anyone mention this obvious peice, but it worked for me. I simply called up Time Warner customer service and advised them that I could not afford the then $45/mo subscription to Road Runner internet access, she countered (almost immediately) with asking if I would be willing to pay for the same service at a discount ... I explained that it would be hard for me to justify anything over $30/mo. She placed me on hold for a few minutes, and came back with a locked in rate of $30/mo ...
Your miles may vary, but I've prompted a handful of friends to do the same thing, and Time Warner / RR were very quick to respond with discounts. Even if its a temporary reduction, you just call and ask them to do it again, it works quite well.
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
You could try cheap DSL - I pay $25 per month including ISP for 256kb up/down because of the good people at usfamily, and the other people at qwest. Not super-cheap, but reasonable. Whatever your area you may well find something similar.
...check out cavtel.com. I used speakeasy for years, and I was very happy with them, but I finally switched because of the cost. I was paying over $100 a month for phone (Verizon) and DSL (Speakeasy), plus a bit more to AT&T for an international plan. Cavtel does both as a package for $50 a month, and their rates for international calls are decent too (you can't choose another long distance carrier when you go with them). It was painful to switch, because Verizon won't start an order for a new carrier while another carrier is using the line, so I had to disconnect speakeasy, wait for Verizon to register that, and then sign up with cavtel - it ended up being 3 weeks without dsl, and when you're used to always on it sucks having to dial up. Cavtel is a bit slower than my Speakeasy was, but really I don't need blazing downloads, like the poster I just want a full time connection and I'd rather save the $600 a year. Plus not giving money directly to Verizon feels good.
This is what my service provider does to lower the cost yet give always on high speed Internet. Connect two or threee computers (of different people ofcourse) into a hub and share the Net connection. Limit the download Kb/s because if you are doing a heavy download, your friends would go really slow at the same time. You can however, keep the upload bandwidth open. Secure the network and restrict access to other computers in the network (very helpful if you don't quite trust your friends). Share the cost and enjoy!
...of the 5$ a month dialup subscriptions and just rotate them. Actually tell the company that's why you are doing it, maybe they'll cut you some slack then on the "always on" part. 10$, still cheap.
BTW, who has 5 clams a month for dialup?
about 2 months ago the modem on my PC burned out for only god knows what reason. I could have replaced it with another modem but my video card takes up 2 slots and my RAID card takes up another slot and my NIC's taking up last slot. so I couldn't replace it. So I just got an old 1 gig athlon machine I had lying around and set it up to permanently dial in and set it up to always restart, always connect and all that stuff. then I just got some cat5 and ran it between the computers and presto! I know have an "always on" dialup connection. Though since I live out in the sticks it could technically be termed an "always on" dialup connection with half the speed, lol
Get a faster line and go into the nospam mail service provider business.
You can make it a profit center!
Check what your cell phone provider offers. T-Mobile's $5/month T-Zones service (GPRS) use to provide unlimited Internet connectivity without blocking any ports. They're blocking most ports now, but 25, 110, and 143 are still open, so I can still use it to check email.
If you can find an anonymous proxy using one of those ports, that's one way to get web browsing going. That, or if you have access to a server with a permanent Internet connection, just setup an SSH or Squid server on one of the above ports, and tunnel your traffic through it. I use the SSH technique to tunnel into a Squid server when I'm on the road.
I bought DSL for some friends as a present for a year for $25 per month from Sonic.net. From what my friends have told me they have been very happy with the service. If you look somewhere like DSLReports.com you might find that DSL in your area costs less than you think.
www.clarke.ca
*knocks a packet off the desk*
Don't hang up.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When you use their dial-up 24/7, you cost b/w $57 and $100 per month and only pay a fraction of that. It makes VERY little (if any) sense for any ISP to allow 24/7, unless they're facilities based, and not many are these days.
I don't know of any.
I did almost solve that problem using Linux and a Geocities free web hosting page. A Linux dialer application called Xisp has an option to reconnect on disconnect. I used that to connect to my ISP with. If you want a constant IP number then you are fscked. I used a Linux HOWTO. It shows how to publish your constantly changing IP number to a GeoCities(or any other always on web page)by using a bash script that greps your current IP number and ftp's it to your GeoCities web page and edits the IP number variable in the page at each disconnect. I added that scrip to a "run at connect" config file in the Xisp application. If I wanted to know my ISP number for remote connection to my box I would just look at my GeoCites web page and get the current number. The HOWTO even included a sample web html text.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I believe EarthLink limits your Internet dial-up connection for 24 hours straight and automatically disconnects you. Then, you will have to dial-up back to get on.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Webservers and P2P aside that sort of upload sucks. For that reason I haven't gone to Speakeasy either. If I want to upload work or a large-ish datafile to a server I might as well use dialup or ISDN. ISPs pay for out going, not incoming. If I am using it for business I am gonna want both up and down. Especially if I am getting slashdotted.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The phone company is real good for adding all kinds of mystery fees and surcharges to your bill each month, and a second line simply doubles this.
Clickety Click
I have always thought that WiFi connection owners should be able to secure/encrypt their own signals, and give them 95% of bandwidth, then leave 5% unsecured for 'guests'.
;-)
Chances are that we all would be always able to find a signal.
Perhaps I'm just a hippy at heart
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
How to Form a Corporation.
How to Form a Corporation.
AC has an anger problem, but he is correct. All devices that use wire connections and are connected to computers must have the same power feed, including ground. That includes all the computers in your own house.
It has nothing to do with a piece of paper called a license.
The reason is that the ethernet connectors use low-voltage digital logic, which can be overwhelmed if there are differences in voltage caused by dissimilar grounds.
"All devices" means printers, for example, and all computers that share the same wires.
Also, don't plug a laser printer into a battery backup power supply. Laser printers draw too much power when heating.
I'm able to use them here in Paris as easily as I do at home!
Of course I don't speak for my employer. My employer doesn't speak for me, either.
Ultra-Lite - 64Kbps for 19.95
Lite - 256Kbps for 26.95
Express - 3.0 Mbps for 44.95
Extreme - 5.0 Mbps for 44.95 w/99.95 modem purchase
A flavour for everyone!I LIKE TOAST!!!
That is pretty funny. When I installed RR for a TWC contractor, we never secured anything or provided any information to the customers about it. There was no printed material and I wasn't about to try to explain it...
In the Brazilian Southern region we have a telephony operator that gives us a second POTS line dedicated to their in-house ISP. Just dial 0, no dial tone, basic PPP authentication and you're in for a flat fee.
If I'm not mistaken in Europe there are places with similar schemes for ISDN, where one gets digital, real 64Kbps instead of a maximum theoretical 56Kbps with analog.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I assume you don't want to hear about my broadband provider in Finland, since you kindly failed to mention even the country you're posting from.
I somehow doubt that Welho.fi would want to string cable all the way to Centeroftheuniverse, California...
The original question posted is something I've thought about and been irritated by. I currently have cable internet (CableOne in Boise, Idaho). It is $45 a month ($40 if you have cableTV service too) for the 1.5Mbit connection. Our DSL in this area is provided by Qworst, and they charge more if you don't have a home phone line. Their bottom level DSL connection is 750K speed, which is just a few dollars a month cheaper(after cheap $9.99 ISP cost added), but if you get an equivalent speed to the cable, it is the same price as cable--very frustrating.
I do have a neighbor's wireless in range of my house, but I'm a pretty heavy bandwidth user sometimes since I'm trying out different Linux distros and doing some re-installations, which would swamp the guy's connection.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
I just looked at the nearest ethernet card. The transformer is obviously designed for high frequency, so normal power line noise is not a problem.
However, a Motorola electronics engineering handbook for power line devices that I read about 20 years ago told me to expect an "unusually high-energy spike" at least once a month. My understanding is that a spike could overload the common mode range of the ethernet interface, and possibly blow out the semiconductors that receive the signal.
This all depends on the capacitive coupling from the primary to the secondary of the transformer. If it is properly shielded, the capacitive coupling could be zero.
We are talking about unshielded twisted pairs (UTP) here. A shield connected on both sides, or even one side would likely have problems.
Is what I've said here accurate? Any references?
...
Does it really MATTER how fast your LAN backbone is in those circumstances???
This is of course given that you only have a few computers on your network that aren't passing VIDEO back and forth amongst themselves.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
I'm surprised no one mentioned using an "alarm line" dsl system.
0 551.html
For instance: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Q_2107
My sig is as boring as you...
if you're unlucky enough to live in a place where there is a monopolistic strangelhold on bandwidth then dial up might be the way to go. (BTW what's the cheapest dial-up service these days?) You could setup a wifi bridge in your attic or on your house if you can't find a reliable signal with a wifi card. All kinds of antennas are available these days. wirelessnetworkproducts.com is at least a starting point (don't know anything about them)
Good luck!
http://tinyurl.com/3t236
When 98 of the users are from the USa, what do you expect?
-1: Troll? WTF, It was a joke! Lousy mods. Save you points for the GNAA or BSD is dying posts. I have good karma, I moderate fairly.
Another way to go in Canada, is: 1) Cancel your existing residential Cable TV or Satellite TV service. 1) Order a basic Business Cable Internet service to your home under a business name. This will be much faster than residential cable internet service (both on the upstream & downstream) at a marginally higher cost per month - say $65 monthly. When the cable installer shows up, let them know that you will be getting tv services via satellite - **and more than likely** the cable installer will leave off the filter which blocks the incoming cable TV signal. 2) Then subscribe to a low-cost VOIP provider that will allow you to transfer your old Bell landline # over to them for say $19.95 per month (say Vonage or Talkbroadband). Immediately cancel that old Bell landline. *There is an article comparing Canadian VoIP provider packages located at: http://www.canadianisp.com/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboar d.cgi?act=ST&f=22&t=1796
3)Now you have a faster High Speed Internet connection with better customer service (since it's business), a phone line with your old number, and Cable TV with 70 odd channels all for about $85 monthly.
**The trick is in getting them to leave off the line filter for cable tv. As far as I know though, the installer will want to leave off the filter by default - since this oftens interferes with you getting the strongest possible signal strength for Cable Internet.
98%