This is really different, but a real situation. I have a friend, 67, who only has a traditional dial up phone line at his home. It is, however, a very good phone line! There is no cell signal, no cable service and the phone company does not offer DSL. His monthly income is about $800. I set up a Dial-up modem with WiFi capabilities (Google GAC-300 Router) so he can actually use a Windows 7 computer or just a cell phone on the dial-up connection. The cell uses so little data that it works really well! His problem is that the local phone companies are turning off the modem pools (or not maintaining them) and dial-up ISPs are getting very scarce. Almost all the ISPs have told me that they are not taking on new customers. I have cable modem at my place, so I need some ideas as to how I might allow him to tap into my network so he could have some bit of internet. So, with his dial-up router/modem, he could dial a VOIP at my place and use the cable modem. I can put a wired router in to give him a private network. It's a simple concept, but not simple to implement! I think of it like a Magic Jack with a modem plugged into it which is connected to his router using my cable modem. Any questions or suggestions?
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Update: I just discovered that AOL still has Dialup. I don't know if it will fly as it is $25/month. There is also DialUp4Less that is still working. I think all these use a modem pool the the phone company sorta maintains.
When I first met this guy, he had one cell phone with no service at his home and only DVDs for TV.
I just recently put in a TV antenna for him. I had a spare one, a large one that I figured might get something from a broadcast tower. The TV antenna now picks up one station from Bluefield, WV and that gives him 8 channels (on very good days). I know quite a few people who watch DVDs and have no live TV because they cannot afford a satellite dish charge!
There are landlines here and I got this friend hooked up with a home phone for about $22/month, but getting the line cleaned up has taken a year of fighting. They are fighting with the wrong person because I have fought them before. Now it's a great voice line, but they do not offer DSL in the places that need it most. He has a W7 laptop that I gave him and I hooked up an old router that uses connection sharing to provide WiFi from a dial-up internet connection. Now he can use the cell phone at home over dial-up internet to check the weather, email, text and play on Facebook. The new GAC-300 dial-up modem/Router gets rid of the laptop in the middle of the limited connection so the cell phone does not share precious data with anything.
If you are not confused by now you should maybe take a break!
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