Some rather startling, at least to me, news:

"American Express is quietly testing a new service that lets cardholders connect to the Web for free, an costly experiment that has failed for many other online businesses.

The service, dubbed American Express Online, gives cardholders free, unlimited Internet access; all-hours customer service; and a Web-based e-mail account with the domain name "AmexOL.net." The account also lets members check their accounts securely, shop online and use various instant messaging services from an American Express-branded home page that is free of advertisements."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4762535.html

----

Seems as if this too could also easily end at any time so please be forewarned!

I read the article on news.com and was suprised to read that AmEx is limiting participation to a limited group of US card holders. As far as I know, I never recieved any invitation from them to join, and I have signed up several times using 2 separate AmEx cards. this service seems pretty cool and although i think its the stupidest business plan (even stupider than selling petfood or toys online), it is really helping me coz my DSL is capped and I just line up all my mp3's and other useless junk in napster before I goto bed everynight. Of course I never click any of their banners because Im sleeping, but it wouldn't matter because I kill the gluon application anyway so banners never show up. Anyway hope this lasts, but in all honesty if I was the head of AmEx, i'd have fired the employee who came up with this idea. See, lay offs aren't so bad when it gets rid of people who want to run a free ISP like it's 1998.. geez.



[This message has been edited by selfdestrc (edited 02-09-2001).]

Bluelight effective March 1 is down to only 12hrs free per month. I think you can also pay $9.95/month for up to 60hrs free per month (not positive on that). Also, for every $100 of merchandise you order thru blurlight.com, I think you get 1 month of unlimited service.

Jeff

Am I being paranoid or is this the beginning of the end of Amex Online? I was hoping to help a friend sign up for AmexOnline Today and was greeted by the following message at their web page www.amexol.net :

Thank you for visiting American Express Online. AmexOL is currently in test. We are not accepting new enrollments at this time.
Service for existing enrollees will continue unchanged during the test.

What do you make of this? What does it mean in test. Does this last a few hours? A few days? Forever? Any one have any insight?

This is important enough that I called AmexOnline.net and asked what the deal was. I was told that the software can not support the number of customers who were signing up. They are hoping to be able to take new users again sometime in late April or May, if they decide to allow new users in and or continue the service. Sounds pretty non commitall to me. Maybe they asked DL to ask the Amexonline user if they wanted to keep using the service and DL found that one customer who never wants anything that good. This is troublesome.

Does anyone know of a paid service - I dont mind paying - that gives you local access around the US and allows you to us POP3 services. AOL I dont think gives POP, I do not know, and I would like to avoid MSN as they have too many problems.

Hey JRF
Try Mindspring.com
$19.95/month + POP3 email acct.

Don't use AOL for email...you will regret it. MSN used to be cool. but now it sucks because they took away the POP3 accts and moved everyone to hotmail.

Okay...so all of the free ones now have time limits. I guess that means you need to download all of them, and cycle amongst them. I always did this anyway, because none of them are reliable at all. If Bluelight won't work, try NetZero. If that won't work, try Lycos. etc. etc. Eventually, one of them usually works...

rmccamy,
bro i dont know about you but i'd just pay the $20 to have a more positive web experience. c'mon..20 bucks...

i think AOL allows you to retreive pop3 mail...

i switched to amex online from AOL last week... i guess i just beat the deadline...

the service is pretty decent, though getting the local number can be a prob sometimes...

but then, its free and the amex logo is really tiny and unobstrusive. so i don't mind.

and 20 bucks is not such a trivial amount... how many stomachs in the poorer places of the world could you feed with that ??

Just when you thought the "Free" ISP saga was over...

www.ArchAngelMail.com

Is there a catch? Yes, several. Read the Terms of Service carefully. Can you say ... NetZero?

If JRF is still reading this thread, I recommend PeoplePC. Has POP3 mail, and some very large # of hours per month for $9.95.
www.peoplepc.com

Duplicate post.

[This message has been edited by Rssrsvp (edited 03-12-2001).]

Duplicate post.

[This message has been edited by Rssrsvp (edited 03-12-2001).]

JRF,
Check out these links to CNET where they compared the top 5 ISP's in the country.
http://home.cnet.com/internet/0-3762-8-4951560-1.html
http://home.cnet.com/internet/0-3762-8-4951560-2.html?tag=st.int.3762- 8-4951560-1.arrow.3762-8-4951560-2
http://home.cnet.com/internet/0-3762-8-4951560-3.html?tag=st.int.3762- 8-4951560-2.arrow.3762-8-4951560-3 http://home.cnet.com/internet/0-3762...62-8-4951560-4

I think that their review will answer your question.



[This message has been edited by Rssrsvp (edited 03-12-2001).]

By now it's clear that the concept of free unlimited Internet access was flawed beyond belief. Providers were completely dependent on mercurial advertising revenue for sustenance. Users had to tolerate spotty service and ever-present banner ads hogging their computer screens.
http://www.forbes.com/communication/...2/0312isp.html