I am consigned to dialup at this time. There is a possibility that DSL may soon be available.

#1- If I get DSL, am I REQUIRED to have a working phone account or does it just run through the phone wires, and if so, why do I have to maintain an open working phone account? Doesn't the signal run through anyway?

#2- If I have DSL, can I use Vonage or other VOIP phone service? Is there a way for the phone company to block this so I HAVE to use their phone service?

#3-Does a phone company who provides DSL have a dialup number as a backup if for any reason the DSL is out?

I remember how excited I was when we went from 18K to 32k to the screaming 50.2K that I get most of the time now. If I can work it out I am going for the DSL but I am not spending money to maintain a phone service on top of it.

I live in a VERY rural area and the phone co. gets us coming and going. We have been sold to every rinky dink phone company in the US and when they finally figure out that the wires haven't been upgraded since they were first installed, they sell us off to another company. At this point we have Fairpoint and it looks like they are planning to stick around for awhile. The state is requiring them to make major upgrades in their service areas because of their buyout of Verizon services in New England.

Any and all answers appreciated!
Thanks!!

DSL AT&T and has no dedicated phone line. It was a small hassle at first getting it going. But no you don't need a landline phone.

Our DSL does not have a back up dialup. It does not go down much...never for a whole day. Maybe 4 times a year for an hour or so. Sometimes it does need rebooting which is not hard.

I believe Vonage needs high speed to work (cable)
I have never tried the other voice programs so maybe someone else here will have an answer for you.

We have basic DSL and it works just fine for us. But we are not gamers or heavy downloaders. I did download some MP3s recently and they were very fast, anyway.

Can i add mine?

I have AT&T DSL. I have a Linksys wireless router that is not hooked up.

Lil'Monkey bought herself a Dell PC before Christmas.

What do I need to do to hook her up to the internet?

She is big time supervised on the internet and doesn't have access to her own passwords. Her computer is in her room. Scary I know, but with her music and school work, one computer wasn't working for us.

Sorry to hyjack RW. I hope you can get DSL. I had dial up until we moved here. The phone wiring in my house wouldn't support DSL.

If no wireless, then you need a cable to connect.

We have a linksys G2.4GHz wireless router for a year now, works fine.
(replaced our previous one what caused many problems=NetGear blech)

Ours Linksys has 4 ports for cables.

The yellow cord (ours is yellow) from the DSL modem goes to the
router in the main port (the one separate from the 4 access ports).

So you can do it by cables. We have my husband's work laptop set up with this router with a cable. My unit here goes into the router also. The laptop upstairs uses the wireless router. There is a procedure for hooking the wireless...our son did that for us. It has a monster password access and naming.
You only need this once...this is done on the net. My son set it up for us...you must have the directions? If not, go to their website. My husband says the router "talks" to the main frame somewhere to do the work...that this is pretty complex in theory but not so difficult to do yourself (I personally don't get most of it !) ...

If your DSL goes down you have to reboot in a certain order.
1) computer off
2) router off (pull the little jack out of the unit.
3) DSL modem off switch
4) DSL modem unplugged --the little jack in the back.

wait

reverse to log back on and wait about 2 minutes between each step in booting back up. Some time is needed while everyone talks to each other, so be patient.

My son is not answering his phone, so that's all I can do for now.

If your house/apartment is not wired for phone (previous owner)
we are not sure if you can get DSL...

My son lives in a townhouse but has no phone service. He has cell phone only. He had to get some "connection" to the phone jack that is dormant for him.

My husband doesn't know if there is no jack in your home, if you can get DSL...you might have to be wired and there might be a charge for that.

My husband says that initial start up of the DSL is very slow, and takes up to a 24hr period to get up to speed, so if you get it, don't despair the first day.

No wireless. Running a cable from the wireless router would be a pain. Cross a hallway. I can see her tripping..over and over.

So on her list, a wireless card or the the type that plugs into a USB port. Good thing she cashed a payckeck.

Thanks MrsD.

I unhooked the Lyksys when I had problems with my AT&T modem. I have all the paperwork, so hooking it back up should be a breeze.

You could get one of the plastic things/mats Office Depot sells for under chairs. These are heavy, and would push the cable into the carpet. I don't see tripping over that kind of solution. You could weight it down along the molding with some of your books! LOL
My son has a long heavy rubber strip to cover his cords, in his living room for his gaming stuff. But it keeps coming "up".
The mat would work better IMO.

No problem, Oh Monkeyed One!

Those would have been my next questions. The DSL I am being offered says that they supply the box, but I don't want their box either because if they don't get it back in time when you dump them you get charged for the box or if you don't keep the service for a certain amount of time they charge you for the box.

If I do go with the DSL, I want my own box, I want my own router, I don't want them to come here to hook it up, I don't want them near my house! Every time they come here they mess things up worse than they were before I called them! It took me six months for them to believe that their phone wire from 1960 was responsible for my slow connection and crackling calls! They came and replaced it and I ended up not having a phone connection for two weeks! Of course I couldn't CALL them to tell them and when they tried to CALL me BACK, they couldn't understand why I didn't get the message! AAARGH!

All I want is a faster connection, no phone service from them, a wireless router so I can unplug and move around the house with the laptop, and no fancy bait and switch stuff!!!

And isn't DSL high speed too? As I understand it you can get differing options of speed?

If you must have a phone line and don't want to go that route maybe consider Wild Blue satellite internet?

http://wildblue.com/

We paid for the modem, and they rebated it in full. So we own it.

We have the slowest DSL...and it is pretty fast to us.
There is a "faster" one too, they offered, but we don't get it.

DSL has been pretty good. However, if you have a PROBLEM, they charge ($100 bucks) now to talk to you over the phone to fix anything! We discovered this last DEC when we had trouble staying on the net. It turned out that our Netgear router was working sometimes and sometimes not. My husband's new computer sort of fried it...some encrypted code from the government that the router did not support.
Support is not great with AT &T, it is in the Phillipines for AT &T and it is hard to understand the person answering questions. They do download programs on your computer (some of which I disabled), so they can look at your system remotely.
They can be enabled in start up fairly easily when you need them..

So it is good as long as it works. We have had the modem now for over 2 yrs, and it still works. The router we replaced last Dec with the Linksys...so far no problems with it.