[ale] Better ISP?

[John]

If you are still on dial up and price is a concern, take a look at the 
extremely basic DSL from AT&T at $14.95/month. You probably can't use 
VoIP over that connection, but my mother has been on it for the last 4 
yrs after holding out on dialup for 15 yrs over price. She runs Linux 
... now and will never go back to dialup. She likes the simplicity of 
always-on ISP service.

You may need a Windows VM to use the AT&T DSL installer these days, but 
after that you don't need Windows again. Seems they want to make the DSL 
router setup, email setup, etc .... "easy" for their customers.  You can 
fight with support, but you will probably just get told they only 
support Windows and not get anywhere. It is unlikely that any support 
people will be allowed to help you with Linux even if they could. The 
support folks must stay on-script.  OTOH, if you know what you are 
doing, I've heard that manually configuring the router and email setup 
can be accomplished if you can get the necessary information without the 
Windows installer.  I haven't heard whether the installer works under 
WINE or not.

Good luck.


On 01/04/2011 08:14 PM, Cornelis van Dijk wrote:
> Hello alers,
> I recently realized that I am stuck in the Dark Ages with my dial up
> at Earthlink. Sometimes it takes five minutes to just get access to my
> email, sometimes it does not work at all. Is this a common problem
> nowadays? (I was busy for a few years with an autobiography "Panta
> Rei", www.virtualbookworm.com;  watch out, this book  slows down your
> watch if you get too close to it.)
>
> Apart from upgrading my PC's I would like to get a better, at least
> faster connection. Do I need something like DSL? I have no idea what
> else is out there.  I pay about $22.- for the dial up (about a year's
> worth of royalties!). I have experimented with other ISP's before but
> they have a tendency to go broke in a hurry. Is the "speedfactory"
> still around? If so, are they any good?  Every now and then AT&T sends
> me some salesmen, but when I ask them whether AT&T supports Linux, I
> get this stare. (Is it actually necessary for an ISP to support Linux
> in order to use them?)  Some pointers will be appreciated.
>
> I apologize to the high flyers and system administrators for my
> trivial questions. I also apologize for the sneak commercial above, a
> justification being that the book was assembled with Linux and Latex,
> another one that I have seen worse OT's before. Cor
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