Best Dial-up Internet Service Providers (ISPs) Review
All Dial-Up Plans offer 30 Days Money Back (NetZero) or 30 Days Free Trial (PeoplePC)
| Rank | Dial-Up Plan | Winning Features | More Information |
 1st Place |
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| NetZero HiSpeed 3G offers nearly 4000 access numbers in the United States and Canada. It's the most affordable, fastest dialup available. The HiSpeed 3G Dial-up offering is the best and cheapest dial-up solution on the market today, If you never experienced "3G accelerated dial-up", you've got to try HiSpeed 3G! | |||
 2nd Place |
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PeoplePC Accelerated comes in as a close second. Its weak points compared to NetZero are: - Smaller Email Accounts: NetZero HiSpeed 3G comes with Email accounts 20x larger! - Their support site and portal are not as user-friendly as NetZero's The main reason to choose PeoplePC over NetZero, is if you live in a more remote area where the NetZero does not offer a local access number. With 12000 Access Number, PeoplePC is the ISP with the most access points in the United States. Note: If you do not already run a firewall and a anti-virus software on your computer, you should order: PeoplePC Security Plus |
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Dial-up Plans Details
| NetZero HiSpeed 3G |
PeoplePC Accelerated |
NetZero Platinum |
PeoplePC Security Plus |
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| Rank |
1st Place |
2nd Place |
3rd Place |
4th Place |
| Fastest Dial-Up Surfing You Can Get! |  |
a little slower then HiSpeed 3G |
a little slower then HiSpeed 3G |
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| Pop-up Blocker | |
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| Unlimited Surfing | |
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| Norton AntiVirus™ Included FREE | |
$2.95/Month | Internet Security Pack | |
| Email with Spam and Virus Protection | |
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| Email Storage | 2 GB | 100 MB (10Mb attachments max.) | 1 GB | 100 MB (10Mb attachments max.) |
| Instant Messenger Compatible | |
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| Internet Calling | |
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| Personalized StartPage | |
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| Thousands of Access Numbers | About
4000 |
About 12000 |
About 4000 |
About 12000 |
| 30 Day Money Back Guarantee | |
30 Day Free Trial | |
30 Day Free Trial |
| 100 Free Minutes Internet Calling per Month | |
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| NO credit card required | HiSpeed 3G 6-month plan | |
Platinum 12-month plan | |
| Price per Month with no annual commitment | $14.95 | $9.95 | $15.95 ($7.97/mo. for 3 months) | |
| Price per Month with 12 months commitment | $.9.95 | $10.95 ($5.47/mo. for 3 months) | $6.95 | $15.95 ($7.97/mo. for 3 months) |
Best 4 Dial-up plans on the market
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Month to Month NetZero Plans
Month to Month NetZero Plans (First Month Free)
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Dial-Up Questions & Answers |
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How do NetZero and PeoplePC Dial-Up Accounts Compare to the Other Expensive Internet Service Providers (ISP)?
The Netzero or PeoplePC Dial-Up Account offers the same Internet
Access as other expensive ISPs, such as AOL®($23.90/month), EarthLink($21.95/month) and MSN
($21.95/month) at less than half the
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How can I switch to NetZero and cancel my existing Internet service?
Both NetZero and PeoplePC offer free assistance and tools to makes it easy to move to them and start saving money today! Don't let your current ISP make you feel trapped. Moving is a lot easier than most think. You will save money while enjoying a fast dial-up connection. If you're currently using AOL at $25.90/month switching to NetZero HiSpeed 3G will save you nearly $200/year!
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Who is NetZero?
NetZero is the Internet Access division of United Online, a public traded company (NASDAQ: UNTD). It is a member of the S&P SmallCap 600 index and the Russell 2000 index. NetZero has been offering Internet Access since 1998, making it one of the leading ISP in the nation. NetZero is one of the few nationwide Internet Service Provider. As of March 2006, United Online has 60 million registered accounts.
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Who is PeoplePC?
PeoplePC Online, an EarthLink company (NASDAQ: ELNK), is a leading provider of high-quality, value-priced Internet service through its PeoplePC Online brand. Earthlink is one of those older dialup firms (like AOL) that could not afford to lower the prices for their millions of customers, so they offer cheaper prices for the same service to new customers who sign-up with PeoplePC brand.
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What is Accelerated Dial-Up?
Accelerated Dial-Up speeds up your Web surfing using your existing phone jack and modem and gives you the fastest web surfing you can get without the high cost of broadband. Basically when using an Accelerator the data on your dial-up connection is compressed. Most web pages and images are full of "empty spaces". Using compression techniques, Accelerators can reduce the size of most web pages by 5 or more. Since the web page is now 5 times smaller it will load 5 times faster. It's that simple!
- What gets Accelerated?
| What is accelerated | What is not accelerated | |
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| Web pages - HTML markup and JavaScript Graphics including JPEG and GIF images Text Email including POP3 and Email on the Web. |
Streaming media, audio and video files Secure pages, such as those used for online banking and credit card forms Files and attachments such as music or digital photos |
- Why should I consider Accelerated Dial-Up instead of Broadband ?
Both Accelerated and Broadband will save you time by letting you surf the Web much faster than standard dial-up. But, unlike broadband, with Accelerated Dial-Up you don't need to install or pay for additional equipment like modems or routers. Simply download the Accelerator software from NetZero or PeoplePC and within minutes you will have the fastest web surfing you can get without the high price of broadband.
- Does NetZero Support any additional Operating System besides Windows?
NetZero was originally designed for the PC Windows environment, but
different versions are now available for other operating systems. If you have an
IBM PC compatible machine, you can use NetZero with Windows
95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/VISTA.
We also support a Linspire (Linux) version of NetZero. If you are
running a Macintosh with OS 9 or OS X, you will also be
able to run NetZero.
- What about those lesser known Internet Service Providers that offer similar low prices?
Most simply resell internet access from wholesale dialup providers. Those companies in turn negotiate access numbers with the
companies that really own the equipment and network. Sometimes you end-up using
the older un-reliable access points the larger ISPs are willing to offer at a
discount. Because of all these intermediaries involved, you are likely to
experience problems (merges, bankruptcy, communications problems ...etc..).
Those problems happen all the time, who needs to deal with that?!
Best 4 Dial-up plans on the market
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We recently received this
We recently received this question:
"How can a high speed connection be any more then 56k, it still has to go though my 56k modem?
Our Response:
You get the higher speed because the data is compressed before it goes on your dial-up line and then decompressed on your computer. All automatically in the background. This enables the information to be upto 7 times smaller so it travels faster on your dialup line.
This works especially well with textual data like html pages (i.e. web sites). For example, it would not work well for online gamers since the gaming protocol will not compress well. Most internet users would do just fine with accelerated dial-up and if money is a concern it's definitely an easy way to save $40+ per month (versus cable or DSL).