Dail-Ups...Good Or Bad?
May 03 '01
The Bottom Line If you don't have the money for cable or DSL, go for one of these. There are many bad things but you still have internet.
I now have cable because I just couldn't handle one of these dail-up modems but while using AOL and FWI for some time I think I can tell you plenty about dail-up services.
What Is Dial-Up Internet Service
A dail-up internet service provider is not a phone company. All the dail-up phrase means is that in order to connect you must dail in a phone number and call the service from your modem. Once you log in you will be hearing a sequence of screeching noises and such but that is normal. Once you connect, you phone line will be tied up but you can view internet pages as you please.
Services
There are many services with a dial-up connection. You can have any range of phone connection, 14.4k to 56k. Some of the major free and cost services are listed below.
America On-Line
America On-Line (AOL) is one of the most favorite services that have more members than any other service out there. The price ranges from $20.00 to $22.00 a month. I would recommend this service to any non-gamer because AOL has it all. Note that the downloads are very slow (about 3k per second average) and the busy signals do come occasionally.
Juno
This is one of the best free services that I would recommend. The E-Mail is great and the price is nothing! The bad thing about this connection is that you have streaming ads everywhere you go and the speed and busy signals are horrible.
Competitors
Some dail-up connections range from slow to fast and free to expensive. I would recommend going with a company that is located around where you live that isn't used by very many people. The competitors against dail-up connections are cable and DSL internet. These come with no dail-up and up to 50 times faster but they cost about $40.00 a month each. I would not go with cable or DSL if you do not use internet that much. If you are a true gamer and big time internet user then you better get cable or DSL or you will be left in the dust.
The Good
The good about having a dail-up connection is the price. There is nothing cheaper and some are even free. I would recommend the length of the use that you will put into the internet should be waged and averaged to find out what service to get. Use the figures below.
Less Than 12 Hours Per Week - Free Dail-Up Connection.
12 Hours To 18 Hours Per Week - Dail-Up Connection.
Gamer With 18 Hours And Up - Cable Or DSL Connection.
The Bad
There are many things bad about a dail-up internet connection. Number one, the phone is busy once you connect, nobody can call you or contact you in any way. There are services such as CallWave that will pick up your calls though. I would recommend that if you are a big user with a dail-up connection. Number two, the speeds can be very slow and if you are playing a multiplayer game that requires internet connection then you are going to go pretty slow. You also download things very slow. Just think you can't download any game demos!
The Bottom Line
A dail-up connection can be very useful and very awful in some places. It all goes according to how long you are going to use it. Thanks for reading my essay.
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Epinions.com ID:
Rufster
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Member: Michael Ruf
Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana
Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 23 members
About Me:
A 20 year old who loves computers and hates homework!
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