JRF has been keeping en eye on this thread, and thanks to everyone for their input.

I use earthlink. If you sign up for earthlink and have AAA, it is $17.95 a month for unlimited service. Not a bad deal for excellent customer service...

It has nationwide dialup service. Also, if you ever go with their DSL (39.99/month) they give you 20 hours of nationwide dialup per month with it...

over all good company and great service.

I still think Prodigy is cheap, reliable and nice. It is $19.95/mo for unlimited service, or $17.95 for AARP members. Right now you can get the first 3 months for the price of 1 (ie $6.95/mo). They sometimes offer referral deals, but I don't do referral deals. Details at: www.prodigy.com

MisterNice

sprint's service is called earthlink

www/earthlink.net

it's what i use when travelling...works fine.

Qwest has a neat deal. Spend over $50. per month in l.d. and recieve free internet service. has anyone had any experience with netzero?

MCI also has a plan that sounds good. I have seen it offered on TV in Upstate NY. $7.00 per month gets you unlimited dial up internet access and 7c per minute for LD. Anyone tried this one. I wonder if you can get miles for the LD?

I just wish they would advertise TV on the Internet.

I sure hope Prodigy has improved their service. It had deteriorated so badly, that I had to give it up along with many others.'

Seems it had a battle with AOL every nite and messed up my computer the next day.

I really doubt if they got their act together. I liked the old Dos version of P* and the message boards. But they too grew tired.

I kept using AMEXOL.NET until a month ago. Amex kept changing their minds about how they were going to bill and how much, so it was (is) still free. It looks like they have finally made up their minds this time. On July 2, 2001, American Express will replace the existing free AmexOL Internet service fee structure and implement a simple pricing arrangement. For the first 75 hours of Internet usage each monthly billing period you will be charged $12.95. If your Internet usage exceeds 75 hours for any monthly billing period, you will be charged $29.95 for that period.

I called AmexOL to enquire if they were still going to have pop-up adds. They did not know if there were still going to be adds. In my opinion, the adds on Amex are not bad as you can turn them off with a little fine tuning in your start up options (look a bit back in this thread.) However, for the new fee structure I am not about to have adds. The new service is a bit pricy at $29.95.

I tried the AT&T $7/7c internet/long-distance plan, you can get miles on CO that way. However, it states clearly in their contract that you are not allowed to turn off the adds, or you will be charged the premium rate for AT&T access. These adds are more then obtrusive, at least AmexOL adds are not huge and always present! How would AT&T know if you turn off the adds? AT&T 7/7 software has a history keeper/communicator in it. If you disable the history program, you get disconnected after only a few minutes, and if the history tracker does not connect every so often, the other ends hangs up. The history keeper tells AT&T that there has been no add traffic (at least this is what I am thinking at the moment) and then up go your rates.

So, I am now trying the 3 month free trial of MSN, who now offers POP3 again, just like Amex does. Question is, do I want to pay for it (MSN)or go on the free internet hunt again? If I pay for internet access, who offers the best with an international deal (I am not for AOL, I want to only use Windows to make my connection, no special software?)

So now it is just a few free hours per month offered at netzero.com, I guess? Anything else out there worth a look? Are the days of free truly over?

Doc, I would guess the days of the commercial free net access are nearly over. However, I don't think it's the death of "free" internet. Did you see the article in the WSJ a few weeks ago about the people setting up wireless networks on rooftops? Folks seem to be taking things into their own hands. I would guess this will be the way access to the Internet evolves in the future.

Heck, even my neighbor offered me free access by running a line from his house to mine because he has broadband and could easily split a line off his router.

COMMUNAL BROADBRAND
Neighbors sharing high-speed Internet access via wireless networks is popular and controversial
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...19/BU44717.DTL