OT- recommend an ISP?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ms
  • Start date Start date
Mark R. Blain said:
For what it's worth, when I had this problem in the past I turned on
dial-on-demand (autodial): if you're not connected, Windows dials
your ISP automatically without asking (if you set it that way) when
you do anything that requires the internet. Of course, you still have
to wait while that happens, so I agree that ten minutes is pretty
tight.
Click to expand...

Plus add "S11=50" to the modem string, for accelerated speed in the dialing.

That said, the automatic redial is a setting that I prefer to avoid. This
particularly as I'm often at motels, where it's common to be charged for
every call.

And then, even in a normal circumstance, it is just offensive in itself,
that an ISP wants to kill my connection each time it takes me eleven minutes
to read something.
On one ISP my hours-per-month were so limited that I set up my
OWN PC to auto-disconnect me after 15-20 minutes idle. Very handy for
long, unattended uploads/downloads.

I hope your new ISP meets your needs better.
Click to expand...

Yes, finally. It took a while to find a good one. At last, with these folks,
I'm satisfied. They're a real ISP, in business for many years. Not from that
weird new crop of reseller thingys. And their usage policies are generous as
can be, hassle-free.
 
Mark Warner said:
As I said, I've not had any personal experience with them, but they have
been highly recommended elsewhere, and if you can take what they say at
face value they seem to be a very straight-up outfit. I'd be interested
in your opinion of them once you've gotten set up and are using their
service. I have on occasion been in a position where I provide low
income people with old donated computers, and have been looking at
copper.net as the ISP to use to hook them up to the 'Net.
Click to expand...

Mark, perhaps you might sign up with their 3mos-for-$1 offer? Then you could
test them directly. And as part of the test, something you might do, it'd be
to call Copper's tech support regularly, and ask the kinds of questions you
might expect would be asked (*) by those folks who are receiving the donated
computers.

Just a thought...

(* Or at least the reasonable questions. New users sometimes ask ISP tech
support all manner of things, such as how to move their start menu, or how
to make text bigger in wordpad, or how "uninstall their icons," etc etc.)
 
omega said:
snip

Yes, finally. It took a while to find a good one. At last, with these folks,
I'm satisfied. They're a real ISP, in business for many years. Not from that
weird new crop of reseller thingys. And their usage policies are generous as
can be, hassle-free.
Click to expand...
Is your ISP a national one? (I live in Oregon)

If so, URL?

Mike Sa
 
ms said:
Is your ISP a national one? (I live in Oregon)

If so, URL?
Click to expand...

It is locally based: Monterey Bay, near San Jose. However, they have a very
large collection of numbers for dialing in anywhere in the country. I see
141 hits for Oregon. To refine by area code,

http://corp.redshift.com/numbers.php

The front page has the links for accounts description, etc, including this
page for a dialup account -

http://corp.redshift.com/connectivity/dialup.php

They are not a discount ISP. It's $20 a month, absolute. Before them, I went
through some half a dozen discount ISPs - and UGH ARGH BLECK. I much prefer
paying the small additional charge in exchange for the solid performance and
the unlimited nature of the account.

By the way, I've only phoned them once, but that day I got a conversation
with a real person: a geek, who was pleasant and knowledgeable. Not one of
those poor robo-morons sitting in the $5.25/hr cubicle, that you typically
get when calling the big ISP-entities.
 
omega said:
It is locally based: Monterey Bay, near San Jose. However, they have a very
large collection of numbers for dialing in anywhere in the country. I see
141 hits for Oregon. To refine by area code,

http://corp.redshift.com/numbers.php

The front page has the links for accounts description, etc, including this
page for a dialup account -

http://corp.redshift.com/connectivity/dialup.php

They are not a discount ISP. It's $20 a month, absolute. Before them, I went
through some half a dozen discount ISPs - and UGH ARGH BLECK. I much prefer
paying the small additional charge in exchange for the solid performance and
the unlimited nature of the account.

By the way, I've only phoned them once, but that day I got a conversation
with a real person: a geek, who was pleasant and knowledgeable. Not one of
those poor robo-morons sitting in the $5.25/hr cubicle, that you typically
get when calling the big ISP-entities.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Karen. It looks good, but the closest town is 20 miles away, not
a local call. I live in the state capitol, go figure.

It looks like a better Earthlink, as far as DUN features.

Mike Sa
 
ms said:
Thanks, Karen. It looks good, but the closest town is 20 miles away, not
a local call. I live in the state capitol, go figure.
Click to expand...

C'est dommage. Btw, I was having the want to take some of this over to
alt.comp.freeware.discussion, but I don't know if you have that group?
For now, I'll post here. But what I would like to transplant at least,
it's a part from another thread, if you don't mind.

From your message said:
Copper support has been responsive to questions. In the earlier thread,
you mentioned the trial offer "3 months for $1", I searched, could not
find it, emailed support, no answer yet.
Click to expand...

I got millions of hits. Googling on: [copper.net free months]. Then even
more for the specific offer, once I refined the search: [copper.net "3
months"]. The short answer, for an URL to take advantage of the offer:

http://www.copperspecial.com

The Google results. I'm going to paste some of them. They all end at the
same purpose, to get you to a page to do the copper offer. But I was sort
of interested to see this array of ISP directory sites. And as well, how
Copper planted this offer all over the place. Page 3-100 of Google hits,
appeared to go on and on, to include coupon sites and shopping sites and
etc. Same vigour as when AOL carpets the country with Bisks. But at least
not with the same landfill damage. :)

I'm pairing up the original site page, with the link that they direct you
to, for that site to get credit from Copper.

http://www.comparingisps.com/copper.htm
http://sub.copper.net/landing/?promo=307444

http://www.internet4free.net/copper.htm
https://sub.copper.net/promo/4335061.asp

http://www.isprank.com/cgi-bin/search/isp?makeSearch=1
http://www.isprank.com/cgi-pl/display/click.cgi?img_id=2147483746

http://www.comsearch.net/internet_service_providers/
http://sub.copper.net/landing/?promo=1040803

http://www.myispfinder.org/search_exec/i/1068
http://www.myispfinder.org/go.php?c_id=1068

http://www.broadbandrank.com/cgi-bi...mpany=Copper.net+-+3+Months+High+Speed+for+$1!
http://sub.copper.net/promo/1020803.asp

All over the place! And yes, as you noted, a zoo. Not only millions of
ISPs, but then so many ISP-finder portals. And then such sites show all
variety of criteria - and motives - in their ratings.

[...]
trial, but I wonder after you mentioned your problems.
Click to expand...

I haven't happened to see any complaints about the canceling with Copper.
So it's hard to see much disadvantage in your signing up for exactly three
months, at the $1. It would give you time to shop around for a really good
long-term ISP....
 
omega said:
ms said:
Thanks, Karen. It looks good, but the closest town is 20 miles away, not
a local call. I live in the state capitol, go figure.
Click to expand...

C'est dommage. Btw, I was having the want to take some of this over to
alt.comp.freeware.discussion, but I don't know if you have that group?
For now, I'll post here. But what I would like to transplant at least,
it's a part from another thread, if you don't mind.

From your message said:
Copper support has been responsive to questions. In the earlier thread,
you mentioned the trial offer "3 months for $1", I searched, could not
find it, emailed support, no answer yet.
Click to expand...

I got millions of hits. Googling on: [copper.net free months]. Then even
more for the specific offer, once I refined the search: [copper.net "3
months"]. The short answer, for an URL to take advantage of the offer:

http://www.copperspecial.com

The Google results. I'm going to paste some of them. They all end at the
same purpose, to get you to a page to do the copper offer. But I was sort
of interested to see this array of ISP directory sites. And as well, how
Copper planted this offer all over the place. Page 3-100 of Google hits,
appeared to go on and on, to include coupon sites and shopping sites and
etc. Same vigour as when AOL carpets the country with Bisks. But at least
not with the same landfill damage. :)

I'm pairing up the original site page, with the link that they direct you
to, for that site to get credit from Copper.

http://www.comparingisps.com/copper.htm
http://sub.copper.net/landing/?promo=307444

http://www.internet4free.net/copper.htm
https://sub.copper.net/promo/4335061.asp

http://www.isprank.com/cgi-bin/search/isp?makeSearch=1
http://www.isprank.com/cgi-pl/display/click.cgi?img_id=2147483746

http://www.comsearch.net/internet_service_providers/
http://sub.copper.net/landing/?promo=1040803

http://www.myispfinder.org/search_exec/i/1068
http://www.myispfinder.org/go.php?c_id=1068

http://www.broadbandrank.com/cgi-bi...mpany=Copper.net+-+3+Months+High+Speed+for+$1!
http://sub.copper.net/promo/1020803.asp

All over the place! And yes, as you noted, a zoo. Not only millions of
ISPs, but then so many ISP-finder portals. And then such sites show all
variety of criteria - and motives - in their ratings.

[...]
trial, but I wonder after you mentioned your problems.
Click to expand...

I haven't happened to see any complaints about the canceling with Copper.
So it's hard to see much disadvantage in your signing up for exactly three
months, at the $1. It would give you time to shop around for a really good
long-term ISP....
Click to expand...
Karen, thanks for posting here, as I would not have seen it otherwise. I
can see you totally understand the selection problem.

Today, I subscribed to Copper. I am seeing this newsgroup in the German
News.Individual.NET server. The Copper server does not have
alt.comp.freeware!! This is the only ng I browse daily. So I enabled the
German server and it shows.

Thanks again for mentioning "3months for $1", I got it when I signed up,
never would have known otherwise.

And this response is using the @privacy.net for username munging, I'll
see what happens when I post.

Copper seems normal so far except the missing alt.comp.freeware, and
now I always have to provide a password when sending an email, never had
to before. If I can iron out these issues, I have 200 hrs/$8.25 on an
annual basis. The other one that "sounds good" is ConnectTo.

Time will tell.

Mike Sa
 
ms said:
snip
And this response is using the @privacy.net for username munging, I'll
see what happens when I post.

Copper seems normal so far except the missing alt.comp.freeware, and
now I always have to provide a password when sending an email, never had
to before. If I can iron out these issues, I have 200 hrs/$8.25 on an
annual basis. The other one that "sounds good" is ConnectTo.

Time will tell.

Mike Sa
Click to expand...

Well, good news. The original fix for Netscape, FixNews, did mung my
address on Earthlink, I see it still works fine on the German server.

Mike Sa
 
omega said:
It is locally based: Monterey Bay, near San Jose. However, they have a
very large collection of numbers for dialing in anywhere in the
country. I see 141 hits for Oregon. To refine by area code,

http://corp.redshift.com/numbers.php
Click to expand...


I know I'm a little late on this thread, but I felt a need to post my
experience with this particular ISP. Redshift is far and away the single
shiftiest ISP I've dealt with in my life. I've had 5 different ISPs in
about 11 years online.
I had a dial-up account with them, and cancelled it after 2 weeks of
incessant headaches. The service was poor, and tech support ultimately
didn't solve the (rather serious) problem I was having. Actually, I was
astounded by the quality of their tech support, some of which were
downright rude, uncaring, and/or ignorant.

I promptly went with someone else, and forgot about them. So, 5 and a
half months later I received an envelope in the mail with a Redshift
return address. I figured they got me on their mailing list, and were
sending me a special offer or something that I would dump in the
shredder. Turns out it was a notice from their collections department
saying that I owed them $78! Not only had I phoned them and cancelled
the account after 2 weeks, but this was the first I had heard from them
in all this time.

I spoke with 3 different people in one call, all of whom basically
called me a liar because I didn't have my "cancellation number" handy!
They claimed they had no record of me cancelling the account. I don't
often get as angry as I was when I cancelled, so I was 100% certain that
I did. However, I honestly can't recall the person giving me a number,
and even if he did, why would I still have it 5 months later?

"Do you have your cancellation number?" The first guy actually *toyed*
with me, saying I had accessed the account within the last 3 weeks. Some
time after I blew a gasket, he gave me the proper date of my last
connection, passed me on to someone else, and never apologized.

"Do you have your cancellation number?" The second guy, after some time,
said he'd do me the big favor of removing all but $17 due. I told him
there was no reason for me to have to give them another cent, and had to
ask for a supervisor TWICE.

"Do you have your cancellation number?" The supervisor told me she'd
"research" it, and would call back the next day.

I've yet to hear from them again, but I'm not holding my breath. I have
to wonder how many people they pull this kind of crap with, and if
anyone just sends them the money to get them out of their hair.

-Steve
 
SideHatch said:
I know I'm a little late on this thread, but I felt a need to post my
experience with this particular ISP. Redshift is far and away the single
shiftiest ISP I've dealt with in my life. I've had 5 different ISPs in
about 11 years online.
I had a dial-up account with them, and cancelled it after 2 weeks of
incessant headaches. The service was poor, and tech support ultimately
didn't solve the (rather serious) problem I was having. Actually, I was
astounded by the quality of their tech support, some of which were
downright rude, uncaring, and/or ignorant.

I promptly went with someone else, and forgot about them. So, 5 and a
half months later I received an envelope in the mail with a Redshift
return address. I figured they got me on their mailing list, and were
sending me a special offer or something that I would dump in the
shredder. Turns out it was a notice from their collections department
saying that I owed them $78! Not only had I phoned them and cancelled
the account after 2 weeks, but this was the first I had heard from them
in all this time.

I spoke with 3 different people in one call, all of whom basically
called me a liar because I didn't have my "cancellation number" handy!
They claimed they had no record of me cancelling the account. I don't
often get as angry as I was when I cancelled, so I was 100% certain that
I did. However, I honestly can't recall the person giving me a number,
and even if he did, why would I still have it 5 months later?

"Do you have your cancellation number?" The first guy actually *toyed*
with me, saying I had accessed the account within the last 3 weeks. Some
time after I blew a gasket, he gave me the proper date of my last
connection, passed me on to someone else, and never apologized.

"Do you have your cancellation number?" The second guy, after some time,
said he'd do me the big favor of removing all but $17 due. I told him
there was no reason for me to have to give them another cent, and had to
ask for a supervisor TWICE.

"Do you have your cancellation number?" The supervisor told me she'd
"research" it, and would call back the next day.

I've yet to hear from them again, but I'm not holding my breath. I have
to wonder how many people they pull this kind of crap with, and if
anyone just sends them the money to get them out of their hair.

-Steve
Click to expand...

Glad you posted, one to avoid. As a result of that thread, I wound up
with Copper.net, seems good after about a month.

Mike Sa
 
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