Re: [vox] Best ISP for the Road?

["Karsten M. Self" <kmself@ix.nMAPSetcom.com>]

on Sun, Nov 17, 2002, Richard Crawford (rscrawford@mossroot.com) wrote:
> My wife and I have unfortunately both fallen into jobs which require a
> lot of travel throughout the state.  We've both let go of our past
> dial-up ISP accounts because, well, we have DSL at home and we both
> thought we were done with careers that require business travel.

> So now I'm trying to track down an ISP that offers the following:

I'll second the Earthlink pitch.  Seems like you already know 'em.  Lots
of numbers.  Not _always_ local, but if the place has at least two gas
stations, odds are good.

> 1.  Lots of dial-up numbers throughout the state (and I mean LOTS --
> we'll be headed to some pretty remote places at times);

Check.  If you get the Win client, there's a built-in list.  Otherwise,
you can get local numbers from their 2300 nationwide POPs online or via
an 800 phone number.  Dialup speeds will vary, you should be able to get
33.6+ most places.

Online locator:

    http://help.earthlink.net/access/


> 2.  The ability to have both of us logged in on one account at the same
> time (though if the rate is cheap enough, we might just get separate
> accounts);

$21.95/mo.  $1/hr for concurrent connections, IIRC.

> 3.  Cheap-ass.  We don't need more than one e-mail account, we need no
> web space or spam filters or even much in the way of technical
> support; we both have our own domains, hosted by a good hosting
> service that we're quite happy with, and they provide our mail service
> as well.  And we're both competent enough to solve most of the
> technical problems we get on our own.

It's not the cheapest, and you'll get a few email accounts, some
webspace, etc., but:

   1.  You'll pay more for phone calls if you're in a hotel/motel.
   2.  ...

> 4.  Reliable.

...in my experience:

  - It's available.  In seven years, maybe a few hours every year or so
    outage at a particular location.  Numbers are rarely busy.  They
    pick up.  They don't drop too often.  Disconnect intervals are long
    (~12 hours).

  - It works.  DNS and connectivity are there.

  - Support is reachable.  You'll wait a few minutes to talk to
    somebody, but ~5 rather than ~20, and it's a live voice.

> 5.  Doesn't have to be "unlimited access"; I don't see us logging in
> more than an hour or so a day while on the road, and when we're at home
> we've got our DSL.

$21.95 is unmetered for single (nonconcurrent) use.

> Anyone have any suggestions?  We've got Earthlink right now, but it
> seems overkill for our needs, and thus more expensive than we'd like. 
> I'm considering peoplepc.com but I'm wondering if there are any other
> good options out there that anyone can recommend.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
   Geek for hire:  http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html

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