Cheapest dial-up Internet

consumer

theloft wrote:

This isn't just for Silver Savers but is open to anyone. But on another thread recommending dial-up ISPs, it mentined that they had seen on these S/S threads that the cheapest dial-up was Tesco daytime. Well I have been (and several other satisfied users) with Fast 4 ISP - https://www.fast4.net -
for over 2 years. The cost is £6.99 per month which gives you 24 hour access, 7 days per week, plus e-mail etc.
No connnection or call charges involved. Minimum 3-month contract. This is the best price, I have checked everywher and this cannot be beaten!

I want to know the speed and the connectivity of dial up from Fast4Net.

Can you guide me as I am looking to get one ASAP ?

buglawton

Nearly all dial-ups run at around 44,000 kbps - the real speed increase - factor of 4 so making it feel more like broadband - is via an add-on service such as Onspeed (£24-ish per year). Nowadays more than ever Web pages are optimised for broadband users. Onspeed does a bit of intelligent trickery to package the pages better for dial-up.

Test it out by temporarily trying Tiscali PAYG dial-up with their Web Accelerator (same product as Onspeed under the bonnet) on then turned off to appreciate this.

theloft

consumer wrote:

I want to know the speed and the connectivity of dial up from Fast4Net. Can you guide me as I am looking to get one ASAP ?

The speed also depends on the connection from BT. I usually get around 50,000kbps but this drops during bad weather or for other reasons to 28,000. Then it is very slow. Another factor is the quality of the modem. My first one which came with the computer reached 56,000 o a regular basis, but when this blew out during an electrical storm, the replacement from a local store has never gone over 50K. Have got myself a Belkin surge protector for all the computer stuff now and recommend everyone to get one if you haven't already. Regarding Onspeed, there was a lot of discussion about this early on and some people thought it was good and others did not. I have lived without it for 2.5 yrs. and unless you are downloading loads of stuff, I would wait and see if you need it. You can always add it on later. Another dial-up pay as you go worth trying is : https://www.aardvaak.net I used these as a back-up service in the early days when I was with One Tel and found them extremely good. But if you are going to spend an hour or more per day on the web, then Fast 4 is the cheaper option.

buglawton

Onspeed does not help with downloads but does with graphics-intensive pages and Word docs or emails. I am using it in conjunction with an old GSM dial-up modem and the difference is radical. Meanwhile a relative is using it with Orange 3g on his laptop and getting 4 times the Web pages for eacn MB that he pays for (as Orange charge by data amount).