Well, that's distressing.

[malthaussen]

I have a lovely little wireless Internet service, unlimited data, and it only costs fifty bucks a month. All I had to do was plug in a modem they provided, and that was that. Too good to be true, it appears, and now that it is going out of business, I'm not sure how I'll have any Internet at all. Yeah, there is a cable company, they wired our TV, but they did a lousy job of it and they'd have to drill a hole in the wall to run the cable to my box. And then there's all the other associated crap. Plans, phones, cable packages, bah, humbug. We still have a single land-line phone and no cute techy stuff at all except for my one computer.

You'd think getting a simple Internet setup for one lousy desktop and nothing else would be cheap and painless. It doesn't look that way.

-- Mal

[hollysmom]

1. well, if you are near a hot spot, you could get like Freedom pop or some

service like that for your internet, no wires. But you have to live in the right place and I don't know the speed.

[bananas]

3. Freedompop uses cellular data, not wifi hotspots. nt

[Go Vols]

2. Or if you live where there are no hotspots,

you can buy a verizon, grandfathered unlimited account on ebay for $1500.00 or less.

[Kali]

4. no shit, you can sell those?

we have 2 of them!

[Go Vols]

5. :/

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=verizon+unlimited&_sop=3

[Kali]

6. sounds too complicated for me

got two kids with unlimited data and neither of them ever come close to using what the same amount of money would be on a regular plan, but I just can't give them u!

meanwhile my computer is on a USB modem that costs 80 a month for 10 G. and I go over fairly often. it is killing me.

[Egnever]

11. What I would do if I were you

I would switch lines with the kids. buy an unlocked phone that works with verizon, run my own hotspot off the phone and ditch the usb modem

Nothing pisses me off more than the phone companies charging people to use their phone as a hotspot. All of the work is done by the phone they just install software on the phone you buy from them to block it unless you pay. It is a total scam. As an added bonus you avoid all the crapware the phone companies install as well.


I stopped buying phones from my carrier years ago when they tried to start charging me for hotspot use, have never paid for it since and have never stopped using it.

[Kali]

13. oh yeah we quit buying new phones a LONG time ago

sent you a PM

[ColesCountyDem]

7. Where are you located, mal?

I encountered a similar problem, and then found Frontier Communications-- http://www.frontier.com -- and have had an inexpensive, hassle-free, WiFi service. They're not nationwide, so check out their service area, but if you happen to be where they are, I highly recommend them. I have had zero problems with them, and on top of that, their customer service and tech support people are bloody NICE, a rarity these days.

[malthaussen]

8. Philly

Frontier isn't there yet, IIRC.

-- Mal

[Sunlei]

9. you have a 'a single land-line phone' you could always go with a dial-up service.

This one is very inexpensive and probably is in the Pa. city areas. http://www.peoplepc.com/

pros are a landline will always work to get you online, even if your home power goes out.

[malthaussen]

10. Huh, who knew there was still dial up?

I have an unused phone jack right by my box, too. Wonder how fast it is. Last time I had dial-up, it was 52k.

-- Mal

[Egnever]

12. it isn't any faster

in fact at this point it s basically unuseable because of all the graphic elements on the web these days.

[Kali]

14. I only got off it a couple years ago

but my email is still with the place I used to have - http://www.sitestar.com/