Net Zero 3G

[MorphineChild]

My parents are looking for a faster internet connection. Pretty much they are limited to dialup or comcast cable. There is no DSL in there area (Fort Wayne, IN 46814). They do not use the computer enough to spend the money on Cable internet. Anyone have any experience with this dialup? They advertise it as being close to DSL speeds. They currently use AOL through a GM discount and pay $4/month, would it be worth it for them to upgrade to the 3G until a DSL provider comes to the area. I tried doing a search and couldn't find anything on this service, sorry if it is a repost.

 

[dclapps]

56k is 56k, and by the looks of it, they utilize a 56kbs modem. This means, contrary to their 'high-flying, jet speed commercials', it will only go as fast as the modem, aka 56kb/s, or roughly below 6KB/s.

Sign up today and start surfing faster in minutes, with NO additional equipment.

AFAIK, for anything faster than 56k, external equipment is necessary. I think it is all marketing, as they don't even advertise their speed, unlike dsl/cable providers who clearly outline their speeds. Stick with the four/month, its already dirt cheap, unless of course they are not even receiving 56k speeds.

 

[ark42]

No, dialup is still dialup. All that service can possibly do make you install some software and compress images down to a much lower quality, and compress some webpages (which are probably compressed already by the webserver anyway).

 

[ofiraltarasy]

dial up is slow as hell wait for bellsouth's DSL extreme 6.0 its 6MBPS down AWSOME

 

[MorphineChild]

that is what I was thinking as well. Too bad no DSL in this area.

 

[Hacp]

Dial up isn't THAT bad, especially if you cache your frequently visited sites. Its just that the DL speeds suck. Going from 6kbps to 300 kbps is a big difference .

 

[imported_netman]

While dial up sucks, it's come a long way..

For services like 3G and AOL, that know some people have to use dialup they make the most of it with: Web Proxy/Cache of HTML and images, compression, etc..

This doesn't help much for people that stream media (audio or video)

 

[Thyme]

Is it free to try out? As everyone has already said, it's going to be quite slow, but will it be an improvement over the current setup? Try it and find out.