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Old dial up packages
ney
Posts: 12,516 Forum Member
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As broadband seems to be the thing now. Are there any ISPs out there in the UK that still offer the old syle dial up packages or is dial up in the UK starting to be faced out and be a thing of the past.
I got a penpal from the USA 15 or 16miles north of Detroit that I talk to online via facebook and now and again via windows live messenger. Who has a 10mb cable broadband and says his friend just 12miles from him can only get dial up or mobile broadband from his mobile company as the phone company dont offer broadband in his area and there is no cable in his friends area as they say its not worth it for about 300 or so houses
I have since in the last month or two added my penpals friend to my Facebook.
Darren
I got a penpal from the USA 15 or 16miles north of Detroit that I talk to online via facebook and now and again via windows live messenger. Who has a 10mb cable broadband and says his friend just 12miles from him can only get dial up or mobile broadband from his mobile company as the phone company dont offer broadband in his area and there is no cable in his friends area as they say its not worth it for about 300 or so houses
I have since in the last month or two added my penpals friend to my Facebook.
Darren
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Comments
Alex
I'd say it will. While on the topic of old dial up packages, back in 1998/1999 my friend had one with BT that you couldn't use til after 6pm as it was too expensive! :eek: Are the dial up packages that are still around anything like that at all or are they PAYG/flat rate? We used to have one here in Ireland (with eircom) that was flat rate. Glad we got broadband now though
We also used Freeserve, Zoom and Breathe at various times (Breathe are still going and still offering dial-up at 1p/min according to their website).
I would put an extra digit in front of the dial up number which meant the call was routed and paid to Sky at a reduced rate.
Therefore hardly any calls were shown and billed by BT.
So BT put me on a low usage reduced charge line rental.
Then one day I just couldn't get on the internet. I tried over a few days with no luck
Eventually I picked up the phone and tried to dial a landline number.
But it wouldn't let me and a recorded message came on telling me to contact BT.
On contacting BT I was told a review of my usage had shown I was not allowed/meant to be on the low usage line rental discount.
On 56Kbps dial up I was getting around 35 to 40Kbps on a good day.
And if I was lucky enough to remain on line for a whole session it was a pretty rare thing, often requiring 2 or 3 re-connections per session.
Those days seem so long ago, thank goodness
PC
However of course it will be 56kb and no use for streaming HD content LOL.
That was last year, I've changed ISP and don't know if my current one offers the service.
I never knew anyone who used AOL but I remember the disks - we always got them through our front door. I still have them somewhere
I started internet with Tiny Online pay and go at 3p a min when I first got desktop PC in the late 90s and that was what turned out to be a crappy Tiny PC with windows 98se.
Changed to a LineOne sufttime package a year or so later and in 2002 I think it was LineOne became Tiscali and they was to keep the surftime packages for 6 or 7 months then let you join the Tiscai anytime dial up package. I had a minor fall out with Tiscali over billing if I remember.
In late 2005 I upgraded to a Dell desktop PC with windows xp and in early 2006 I upgraded to at the time BTYahoo broadband with a 1mb speed. Later the same year up to 8mb speend started so I moved to that with a just over 2mb speed. That in time improved to a just under 3mb speed.
I have been with BT fully for phone and broadband since then.
Darren
I went with them as they supported the new fangled k56 Flex modem standard which I had rather than the rival x2 56k modem standard.. then the two standards became one and we all could enjoy blistering 56kbps then called V90 and later V92
I think our local number was a Newark area code, they also went to 0845 number eventually. We had a 3com X2 modem, which we used to get around 42-45k speeds with.
That felt sooooooooo fast back them.
Even better when I met my other half, she had ISDN fitted which was like super speeds! I even remember when we had the first round of BT FTTP fitted in 2004, started at 2mb then 10mb towards the end of the trial. Strange really how things change, were back on the new FTTH trial!