On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:44:57 GMT, Richard Ferguson wrote:

I got an unadvertised deal from Qwest, which is called Qwest basic, for
which I pay $25/mo for 256K DSL. I don't even get an email address for
that price, just a pipe to the internet.

I pay $6/mo to AT&T for webhosting, 6 email addresses, and usenet. I
had been with AT&T when I was on dialup, and I did not see a good reason
to move.

If I did not need webhosting I would probably have gotten a cheap or
free POP3 email account. Google is offering a free POP3 account nowadays.

I have tried to check out the Gmail, but it is on invitation basis,
beta testing. Is that what you mean by Google and POP3 accts?

The reason people go with AOL is not stupidity, it is convenience, and
doing what their friends and family does.

When AOL first came on line, they were providing content that you
could not easily find on line. However most of their content now is
readily accessible through Yahoo, Google, and IM and chat accts. I
have not done much with VOIP, but I expect that is the next area where
they will be left behind by specific providers, if not already.
However when they first came out, they were the company to imitate! I
have not kept up on what the effect of alternative OS like Linux have
on AOL, or browsers like Firefox. Essentially AOL was a browser, and
because of that, it could be left out, unless there is another CD rain
storm!

Despite having a few college
degrees, it took me a lot of effort to get my Qwest/AT&T DSL service
working correctly. Most people would probably be better off hiring a
tech guy to get it all working.

Richard


RkyMtnHootOwl wrote:



The fact that AOL is actually a successful business shows just how
screwed
up the world really is.

Was it Barnum who said "Show me a Fool, and I will show you a way to
separate him from his money!" or something along that line OvO

As an AOL customer (and now an MSN customer?!?!?!) you would know! vOv


Nope, you must have me comfused with someone else, I never had AOL,
and MSN gets pushed on us by Qwest DSL. All they provide now is
Internet portal, 24/7 support for DSL, and 10 pop3 accts. There are
other DSL providers, but they just rebundle Qwest DSL, since there is
just the one network. I have been considering Comcast that provides
higher speed, but more expensive, and I can only type so fast,KKKnnnn

Again I forgot that I have the 1.5 meg package, and it also provides
anywhere, anytime dialup access, so that I don't need any other ISP.
But then I don't travel much. Use it mostly when I am here in town,
where there is no DSL, and I need to download some info. Much slower
when you are use to 1.5 but will get the job done! OvO