Dial-Up Internet Service

Dial-up service is slow but cheap

With companies such as EarthLink, AT&T and Verizon rolling out lower-speed, affordable DSL to compete with dial-up, it's hard to recommend a slower dial-up plan except in cases where DSL isn't available. This may explain the lack of recent reviews of dial-up services.

EarthLink dial-up (*Est. $12.50 per month if you pay a year in advance; $15 per month with a one-year commitment not prepaid) comes out on top in the 2008 J.D. Power and Associates survey of dial-up ISPs, where it gets particularly good marks for customer service, billing, performance and reliability. However, no survey of dial-up ISP customers has been done since 2008. Software features are similar to what you get with other EarthLink services, including the same spam filtering and antivirus features, and eight email accounts. An accelerator feature helps some text and graphics on web pages load faster (although not as fast as broadband). The same 24/7 customer support is available as for EarthLink's cable and DSL subscribers.

If you only occasionally use the Internet and don't want to spend $10 to $20 for dial-up or low-speed DSL, services such as Juno and NetZero offer free Internet access for 10 hours a month in return for being allowed to park advertising windows on your screen. You can generally move around, but not close, the ad boxes and they can be annoying, depending on the size of your monitor and your tolerance level.

Juno and NetZero are owned by the same corporate parent, United Online, and offer identical services and prices. That includes 10 hours of free dial-up Internet access per month, plus multiple email accounts with mobile and web access. The next step up (*Est. $10 per month) offers unlimited Internet access, spam and email virus protection, a personal website and 24/7 phone support. An accelerator, which makes web pages appear to load faster, comes in a step-up plan (*Est. $15 per month) that also includes the Norton AntiVirus suite, but at that price reviews suggest you're better off using EarthLink dial-up.

Both Juno and NetZero score well in customer satisfaction surveys, and their free plans can be useful as a second service. For example, even if you have a broadband Internet connection at home, it may not include a dial-up phone number for Internet access while you're away. Free ISPs can also serve as a backup in case your primary Internet service provider has temporary problems like power outages.