# So Ive ben told. Is it true



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Been told that IF I buy my own modem, I don't have to be tied to a puter Co. Is that right?


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

Yes, as long as you don't want to be on the www


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

- You still need a modem to get ON the net. Are you confusing a Hard Wired Modem to the Computer? And saying the puter co? WiFi modem and WiFi Computer is not connected with a Direct Wire between the Modem and computer. But you still have to be connected to some ISP. somehow, via Cable, DSL which then is the Computer Co.


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## gilberte (Sep 25, 2004)

If you buy your own modem you don't need to pay the monthly fee for a modem to the cable company, at least in my case. Your mileage may vary.


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

If you have a newer PC and a USB 56k dial up modem you can get 15 or 20 free internet hours a month through free ISPs with ads and extremely low cost ISPs with more hours of surf time if you pay by the year. You just wont be able to watch your youtubes as easy on it but there may be some accelerated dial up ISP services for a little bit more that might split the speed difference for you at a little extra cost and load the youtube stuff faster.

A guy near me who went from his phone provider dial up to their higher speed connection but could no longer afford it and his phone service wouldn't allow him to revert to the cheaper dial up found a dial up with local access number for something like $110 once a year that he pays with a money order and at that price he pays just over $9 a month.

All you can do is search free or low cost ISPs in your area and see if they offer a local access dial up phone line to you if you want to get cheap basic surf capabilities.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Shrek said:


> If you have a newer PC and a USB 56k dial up modem you can get 15 or 20 free internet hours a month through free ISPs with ads and extremely low cost ISPs with more hours of surf time if you pay by the year. You just wont be able to watch your youtubes as easy on it but there may be some accelerated dial up ISP services for a little bit more that might split the speed difference for you at a little extra cost and load the youtube stuff faster.
> 
> A guy near me who went from his phone provider dial up to their higher speed connection but could no longer afford it and his phone service wouldn't allow him to revert to the cheaper dial up found a dial up with local access number for something like $110 once a year that he pays with a money order and at that price he pays just over $9 a month.
> 
> All you can do is search free or low cost ISPs in your area and see if they offer a local access dial up phone line to you if you want to get cheap basic surf capabilities.


I've wondered when you mention dialup as a serious alternative. Do you have one of those rare landline connections where you actually get close to 56k? Cause best I ever got was like 24k. 

And in the modern world wide web, darn few static html sites where this still works to load a page in a reasonable amount time. I certainly cant get onto banking website or other sites loaded with gimmicky eye candy and pretend security rigamarol. Even if I wanted to wait, the browser times out before dang thing loads so get to start over. I am as cheap as it gets, but dialup just became complete waste of time and money. It was only good for emergency pop3 email.

Having to give $30 a month for basic landline and then $12 on top of that for an isp just to have barely usable internet service. Not economical since I otherwise didnt need a landline. 

Well I get 4GB cell data per month using Straight Talk and Net10 hotspots for equivalent of $40 a month. Using two that I stagger so I can use one to service the other one when it runs out of data. YOu can call customer service to do this, but better speak Swahili and be willing to be on hold for extended periods. I know, makes little sense but way both ST and Net10 do things. Long as I avoid video and keep other parasitic data eaters at bay, it works. 

If I really wanted to super economize, suppose I could limit myself severely and get by with 1GB per month which is like maybe $15. I could even use the hotspots with SIP or voip number but I have a Puretalk flip phone thats $10 a month. I forget now but so many minutes a month added for my $10, so little on borderline to begin, but I talk darn little and unused roll over minutes started adding up. So many rollover minutes now I could probably talk constantly for whole month or two and not run out. I cant complain about a $10 a month phone service that meets all my needs. Whole lot better than wasting $30 a month on that landline that tended to go down anytime there was a heavy rain.


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

My dial up connects between 50k and 55.2 . depending on the season as the copper lines conduct better in the cooler weather but even 50k is good enough to suit me at the price.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Shrek said:


> My dial up connects between 50k and 55.2 . depending on the season as the copper lines conduct better in the cooler weather but even 50k is good enough to suit me at the price.


 Ya even back in my day of using 56K many many times I was at 53. Sure it back down at times but mostly was at 53 and then went to 50 at the slowest times. not bad at all for living out in the country. LOL Boy it would be HARD to go back to those slow times. LOL I can remember even watching a Youtube I had to Start it, then put the video on pause so it would load while I did other things. LOL


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