discount isp's

[pindoc]

among discount isp providers, who do you like best? i live in a rural area. phone, cellular, radio and reception here is poor, and there is no tv reception w/o satellite or [poor quality] cable. i have not found a discount dial-up service with accelerators for macs. the only mac accelerator i have seen reviewed seems dubious in quality. macreview compared it's availability for purchase to hwy robbery. another reviewer says it's not 3x speed, but it's certainly better than regular speed.

if i go wireless. how difficult are pci cards and aiport cards to install? i found a $40 plan, that beats paying for dsl and a landline. do i also need a router? what else do i need? i don't think i need an airport base, but i need the original airport card, since it's the 802.11b standard.

i'm considering just using a free service for a while, especially if i have to buy much to get set-up on wireless. do you have any favorites? i'm afraid to use an AOL trial in the meanwhile, 'cuz i did that on my desktop and never got rid of the AOL browser. yuk. i have dsl, but the cost is not justified for the service i get and i can only get dsl thru my local phone servic.

[photographxgrl]

I too live in a rural area with a horrid phone system. Satellite is currently my only option for high speed and at a high price at that. I use Earthlink, which is not a discount ISP (I'm afraid I don't personally know one for mac's, someone else may) but they are very nice to work with whenever there is trouble.

I *think* that whenever you are on high speed it's wise to use a router. Or so I've been told. I think if you can get high speed wireless access for only $40 that is mac friendly, that sounds like a deal! In my iMac an airport card looks very easy to install. What system do you use? With that info perhaps someone here can give you more insight.

As for the AOL browser...it should disappear when you uninstall AOL. One idea is to search with Sherlock and properly delete all AOL files.

I'm curious about your dsl ... what are your speeds? cost? is it poor performance that makes you think it's not worth the money?

laura