Alright…time to come clean…
I STILL HAVE DIAL UP, and on AOL no less.
I have no say in this, keep in mind, but my dad insists on keeping AOl/Dial-Up…he pays like $22 a month…
Is there any faster method (which could keep AOL, preferably, since he likes it) which isn’t a whole lot more a month?
Please let me know any methods anyone here knows about and/or uses. (Also, are they available in the US?)
EDIT: forgot to track it…
AOL has a DSL service.
Some cable services are about 30 bucks + modem and ethernet card.
You have flatrates on dial-up in the USA?
If you don’t: It shouldn’t be very difficult to find a dsl service that comes out cheaper than your current dialup connection.
Originally posted by Nulani
You have flatrates on dial-up in the USA?
If you don’t: It shouldn’t be very difficult to find a dsl service that comes out cheaper than your current dialup connection.
Yeah. flat-rates. Unlimited use.
Freaky. We don’t have those in Norway.
Makes it a bit more difficult. But if you look around you should be able to find something at about the same cost.
I’m getting $10 Canadian a month for dial-up via my university. 8p
I know here in Canada, Sympatico (which is via the phone line, but it’s a whole lot faster than dial-up) is about $30 Canadian a month, which is around $21 US. Really, unless you’re going for blazing speed, you shouldn’t have any problems getting a service for around that price.
Cable, but might be losing it soon…
If your father wants the AOL services, but a faster internet, than you can use the byoa plan.
You find a cheap DSL provider and get online. Then you use the plan to get to the AOL services/member area. To acess AOL, you have to subscribe to their ‘byoa’ plan. It is a ‘bring your own access’ so you will need to pay the DSL bill, and then for the AOL. It is not going to be cheaper than 22 dollars, i bet, but you will get REAL dsl, and your father will get AOL.
EDIT-I’m not sure if they still have the byoa plan though. They had back when i was on AOL. Try a keyword search of ‘byoa’ or look on your billing and payments pages.
But jesus, try to get off of AOL entirely. Comcast cable (which is what i use) has AOL-like features. They have everything that AOL has, in fact, most big-name providers offer free services like email and webspace (like aolhometown).
How much is Comcast Cable?
Maybe, just maybe I can talk him into that…
Otherwise I’ll check for BYOA…I like playing games online, and Dial-Up is NOT the way to do it. Oh well, I’ll be in a dorm room in the fall…:yipee:
Cable that acts like 14.4k dial up after i use it for an hour.
Originally posted by Devillion
But jesus, try to get off of AOL entirely.
Why everyone pick on aol ;_; Sure it’s sucking on my brain cells but its doing it happily! But really why is there animosity toward aol? People on aol? sure give you that. The booting? Never happened with me that much. Makes out with my cable modem hmm oh yeah.
I know how you feel Bing. I have AOL too. My dad keeps telling me we’re going to switch to DSL but he keeps forgetting. I thinkt he best solution in your situation is to get AOL Broadband. You may have to buy an Ethernet card and pay more (I’m not sure how much), but your dad will be happy he has AOL. Why is he so fascinated by it if I may ask?
I used to use phone-based dialup, but it was slow AND full of bugs. I switched to cable-based DSL and it is cheaper (I pay about 15$ over my monthly Cable bill) AND it is faster and better! Try to go that way if you can.
As for AOL, I dunno because I have never used it. I HAVE it installed (I think a friend of mine who was helping me with some problems did it) I just never had the need to use it (I also have IE, Netscape and Mozilla, which is what I’m currently using.)
BTW, I tried to put away the AOL icons from my desktop the other day (I was reducing the number of icons on my desktop so my PC would load faster) only to find they REFUSE TO GO AWAY! Can’t even throw them into the Recycle Bin! What can I do? I didn’t want to uninstall it ( you NEVER know when you might need it) but if there’s no other way…
That’s weird. When I updated my AOL to 9.0 and it put a whole bunch of icons on my desktop, I just deleted them normally. Do you get some sort of error message Wil?
No, I just try to put them in a “old icons” folder, and I end up with TWO copies, one in the folder AND ONE IN THE DESKTOP. Same deal with the Recycle Bin. Note, I had no problem putting away the IE and Netscape Icons. (?)
AOL is the biggest waste of money ever. I have no clue why people pay for it. It gives you the same exact things you can get from normal internet access- only you have to pay extra. Psh.
How about BIC-TCL? It’s about 6000 times faster than DSL.
@ Wil
I’ve never had any problems with AOL icons being deleted, trying to uninstall it in the past has been hell. I don’t know what wrong, sorry Wil.
@ BahamuXero
I think he likes it because it’s “what most people have.” So things like E-mails to one AOL member from another doesn’t need @aol.com on the end. Also it’s simple for him to use. He still pays $0.10 per minute on our house phone, simply because looking into anything else and changing would be too hard. (Then he turns around and expects me to find a job in this economy, I might add…trust me, he just makes no sense.)
In General
I spoke to a friend the other day about this. He’s really good with computers and used to live not far from my house. He said “Get DSL!”. Apparently I live a few hundred feet away from the local DSL connection line (or whatever it’s called). He said this means that I would end up with one of the fastest connections around if I got DSL. If I instead went for Cable, the more people that were on it, the slower it would go (as I think Steve was pointing out). So I’m going to try to get my dad to get AOL Broadband, or the AOL BYOA service. Thanks for the help everyone. More price info and input is welcome.
Originally posted by GunsmokeMist
Why everyone pick on aol ;_; Sure it’s sucking on my brain cells but its doing it happily! But really why is there animosity toward aol? People on aol? sure give you that. The booting? Never happened with me that much. Makes out with my cable modem hmm oh yeah.
I got kicked off their service for a TOS violation, and as far as i know, i didnt violate any of the EULA and TOS forms they showed me.
And it was painfully slow. After i had AOL i switched to a different dialup provider and got faster service on a 56k.
EDIT-
Apparently I live a few hundred feet away from the local DSL connection line (or whatever it’s called). He said this means that I would end up with one of the fastest connections around if I got DSL. If I instead went for Cable, the more people that were on it, the slower it would go (as I think Steve was pointing out)
With cable, it doesnt matter as much how many people are on (i dont think). My entire neighborhood uses comcast, and i dont see a drop in speed. And steve’s connection is just weird. And he has ‘roadrunner’, not comcast anyway (if i remember correctly).
Originally posted by Xelopheris
How about BIC-TCL? It’s about 6000 times faster than DSL.
Ok, when I posted a minute ago, I didn’t see this.
Details please Xelopheris?