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Last November (on Black Friday 2008) we finally bought our first family laptop, taking advantage of a 40% cash back offer from Live.com on purchasing HP branded computers from HPShoping.com. We had to pay $10 more ($6 after the rebate 
for adding a Modem to the laptop system we liked as we still use Dial-Up Internet access. We live in an area just outside the city limits and there is no DSL or Cable available, so the only cheap option for Internet access is Dial-Up. Yes, folks – we still rely on the good ol’ 56Kbit modems to deliver amazingly fast download speed of 5K/sec (on a good day .
The only thing we could do in our case to help this situation was to shop around for the cheapest possible dial-up access, so we don’t end up paying $25/mo for access to the “most popular American ISP” – America OnLine (AOL). After some research we signed up for Juno Platinum (www.juno.com), at a 12 month contract for 6.95/mo. We have been able to successfully renew the contract for 12 more months at the same price, after our service was switched to $13.95/mo automatically without anybody letting us know of course. But that’s the cheap tricks companies use to get you pay more for same quality of crappy service.
To get back to the point – recently I was pricing out comparable laptop systems to the one we bought and noticed that the specific vendor (DELL in this case…) did not include the built-in modem in their Inspiron line laptops anymore.
There was no way to add modem as an item to the laptop system at all. This is hardly a big surprise, as in the past Dell were the first computer to drop off the PS2 ports for keyboards and mice from their Desktop systems as well.
Couple of weeks later I see that the later Toshiba laptops do not include built-in modems as well.
What are the options for fast Internet Access in areas with no DSL / Cable Option?
- Satellite Internet access
Some basic explanation plus some available options are offered here (http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/satellite/)
Satellite Internet Access was the only high-speed option available when we moved into our house 3 years ago.
- Microwave Internet Access
This is a very recent option in our area (the last 2 months). Price starts from $40/mo ($480 / year) plus $150 for purchasing the equipment. Speed is comparable or better to basic DSL / Cable.
