We cannot get broadband in our area and going on the net is turning out expensive.

We pay (I think) about $30 per month for unlimited access BUT you still have to pay 30cents everytime you connect to the internet.

We started to connect and then try to leave it on as long as possible. After a while it switches itself off.

Now, if I go on in the morning, son goes on after school and then hubbie goes on when he comes home from work, it soon mounts up!

Bloody rip off, we use phone cards to phone the uk but our bill is still $125 every month and we hardly ever use the phone, we hardly know anyone yet!

What a rip off!

Mandy

The way that I found to get round that problem, was to set Outlook Express to check for emails automatically, every 15 minutes. With some providers that tells the system that you are actually using it all the time, and keeps the connection open.

Also, make sure you don't have call waiting enabled, otherwise any incoming call seems to bounce your connection off.

I use Dodo - about $70 per 3 months - and it has no cut off time; I tend to connect first thing and leave it on all day - even if not used for several hours the connection stays live.

Hi Mandy
Have you tried TPG, http://www.tpg.com.au/products_servi...up_pricing.php
we've been with them for around 5 maybe even 6 years now, we were with various ISP's before this one , and have never had any problems with them ( TPG) at all ( I know Bondi had a rant a while back about TPG, he had some sort of problems I seem to recall ). But we personally have never have encountered any probs with them in all the 5/6 years that we've been a customer of theirs, and they are the one of the most competitve/cheapest companies here with pricing . They tend to work out the cheapest.. It's $16.99 for the unlimited account looking at the prices there at the link, per month ( quarterly account, paid in advance). It has an 4 hour cut off though, and you will need to redial

we are not on dial up these days , but have stuck with this company for our Broadband connections , again being one of the best value here.

I can recommend this ISP, we've stuck with them for years, no probs at all with their service, and if you do the maths, it tends to be one of the best value Isp's in Aus.



cheers

WHat about satellite broadband or isdn?

i know i might be trying to tell you how to suck eggs but worth a look if you've not considered it?

I used to keep connections alive by running ICQ, or Yahoo, which seems to work ok.

On the assumptionthat you are using one telephone line, and therefore need to disconnect - I'd look at the Optus and Telstra phone plans where you get 100 free local calls. I used to find (when on dial up) that I was using up to $17/month on dial up calls so you should be able to make some reasonable savings.

I am with iprimus and although $74 a month sounds a lot i get broadband,free local calls, name a nation where you can ring Britain for 17.6cents per minute National calls capped at $2.50 line rental and if you go over your useage,mines 500MB you do not pay any extra they just slow you down. Im in Brisbane though.

We went the ISDN route. It has to be Telstra and you get 2 phone lines, no actual dial-up charges, just the monthly rental, and they give you 50 free local calls per month. It's leaps and bounds faster than dial-up and we have 2 of us online together most of the time. Cost is $89 per month for normal phone line, extra line and unlimited ISDN access calls. There's a limit of 10 hours before you get cut off and no download limits or charges. Telstra gets a lot of flack but it's working well for us. It might not be as fast as broadband but it's fairly close and we can listen to BBC radio on line (without interuption) at the same time as doing other things. We also have the advantage of using the second line for the fax so it now has its own number.

We tried both Dodo and Optus dial-up before getting the ISDN. Dodo was sometimes slowwwww, but cheap, and Optus was always reliable and at maximium speed.

Lesley

Yeah it's really frustrating - we're on dial up also with a similar deal and can't get broadband either - couldn't get cable broadband in SA AND told that DSL wasn't possible either. Everytime we have a prob with the computer (freezing etc) we have to shut down and then pay more to connect! fed up seeing adverts for dodo broadband (and others) at amazing similar prices to broadband and knowing that we can't have broadband !
Never mind, off swimming tomorrow and it'll be 37 degrees!
There's more to life - off for a cooling off dip in our pool right now and it's gone 10pm
Simon

If you use *44 in front of the dialup number call waiting does not interrupt modem connections.