Juno is standing here with a jar of Vaseline, so I'm prob'ly outta here...

The BBQ Pit
#21

I think the key is in the term “business model.” I think it is defined in this sense:

“We want grizzled old ladies who only telecommute to Passadena for virtual church on Sundays. When they do, they are bombarded by requests to try our sponsors’ hair-bluing products, and occasionally even buy them.”

Translation: “We have one server using a Pentium II 450 and 64 megs of RAM to service a region the size of Belgium. We only want people who are not competent to use the resources the Internet has to offer them.”

Fuck 'em. Would you pay twenty bucks a month for a subscription to a thousand newspapers? For free postage? For access to a thousand libraries with no return policies? For your own free record store (until next week)? Properly used, the Internet is incalculably more valuable to you than the Hitler and Lizard channels are on cable. Ditch those guys, and the wanktwisters you currently deal with for the Internet if you can, and hook up with a more honest and competent provider. 'Cause you’re in the used car lot right now, and they’re trying to sell you a shitbox.

#22

That sucks. Do they actually think that anyone will pay $30 a month for the “privilege” to use Juno’s sucky system rather than a real ISP? Maybe they think their ads will work better if they only cater to stupid people.

They aren’t the only ISP trying to get rid of customers, though. It seems that my ISP, Frontiernet (owned now by Global Crossing), sold me to Earthlink/Mindspring. What the heck is up with that? I can’t seem to get any sort of straight answer as to why this is happening, either. They aren’t going out of business. As far as I can tell, they are still accepting new business. They are keeping some accounts. They just don’t want my business. Oh, well–I guess. :confused: I’ll just take my ball and go home.

#23

Springfield :slight_smile:

My folks live outside of Peoria and have the same funky charge thing going on. They have to dial the area code plus all seven numbers to call more than about 10 miles away.

Damn, none of those numbers are in our pool :frowning: but :

Earthlink’s got a (217) 877 number, and Prodigy has a (217) 421 number. Disclaimer - I’ve never used either of these. I HAVE used OneMain.com, and they suck.

–tygre

#24

I use Earthlink and keep in mind they lease lines from other providers. You are not guaranteed excellent service but they are okay.

I actually have AOL as a back up because I have to have internet service, it’s an extreme part of my living. Earthlink is free for me (my client pays for it) and AOL is a full fledged AOL account.

For as much time I put on the internet I have to say that Earthlink does a pretty good job even though I have been having problems with two specific numbers in the last week.

My next venture is to get wireless access (Sprint Broadband) but they are going through growing pains at the time because a good many of us can’t get DSL or cable and people are signing up like crazy. It will cost me about $40 a month but for the speed (I currently connect at 26.4) it will be worth it. In addition, I will be getting the business access for an additional $40 a month which will allow me to host my own server! (yipeeeee!)

Anyhow, look to Earthlink and pay out the $19.95 a month. Access is easy (don’t use their lame ass software to set it up, email me and I will help if you decide to go with it) I am an extreme user of Earthlink and never been told I need to cut back my time. I am on line from the time I get up to the time I go to bed, and I am not kidding about that. I even leave it on when I run to get cigs (knows a few ways to cheat the system that are not illegal.)

Don’t let the bastards pull you down. Free ISPs are dead, get a real connection and keep coming back to see us here DDG!

#25

Geek because not only do I pay a monthly fee for a cable modem, but I also pay a monthly $24.95 for dialup access to a local ISP with a unix shell account. I rationalize it by saying that I kept the dialup because I didn’t want to have to change my email address when I got the cable modem, and that I use it as a backup connection when the cable flakes out, and that I use the shell account on a daily basis. And that I get a month free if I pay for a year at a time. (For Minneapolis folks, Winternet is my ISP of choice. They’ve never once bitched at me for staying online for upwards of 96 hours straight.)

Yet I still shop for discount macaroni and cheese and buy it in bulk.

#26

I agree with techchick, Earthlink is OK.

I also agree, don’t use their lame software. Setting up Earthlink is super-easy with just Windows Dial-Up Networking (DUN). I used to call EarthLink’s tech support to walk me through setting it up (it’s easy, but I was a little unsure about a few things). Now I have all the settings written down, so it’s easy to set up DUN any time I find the need.

#27

What do you mean illegal??? I assume you’re talking about getting the no-activity boot? Aren’t they offering you unlimited access? Why should it be illegal to stay on for an unlimited amount of time? I don’t read all the fine print when I sign up, so if there’s something in there about this, please enlighten me.

[sub]And in case it’s not clear, I hate all ISP’s.[/sub]

#28

Another dissatisfied former Juno user. Used the free service, wasn’t great, was free. Things were dandy for 6 months or so, then I started seeing Juno adverts on TV for the free service. First reaction, “this is bad”. Sure enough not 3 weeks later I get an email stating that heavy users may become limited in their access. 4 days later when I next log in I get that same basic notice that due to my “heavy” usage I have been relegated to only being able to log in after 3:00 AM. (An aside/ Isn’t 5:00 PM technically after 3:00 AM? /end aside)

Anyway, yeah they have a right to make a profit and to limit those abusing the system, but I hardly think my usage (less than 5 hours a week) could be deemed heavy.

My opinion, their business model is failing and they are desperate to downsize and increase revenue.

Jerks!

#29

But my AOHell is looking better each and every minute in this dotcom graveyard we now live in.

#30

It’s not illegal per se but it is in most ISP agreements that you do not use software to keep you logged on. Instead, I use a page that updates its self every fifteen minutes. That’s not against my membership agreement so I am not breaking any rules.

Also, I found out it’s my damn phone line that’s been creating problems for my internet connection. I don’t think it’s fixed though…

#31

Well, i’m out in Europe, and BOY are we behind. We still pay for local calls, and the kickbacks ‘free’ ISPs get from generating the [paid] local call traffic means they stay aflot with ease. But aren’t actually free of course. You can’t get anytime free dialup for less than $25 and there aren’t a lot of choices. DSL hasn’t been dealt with well do i still have 112k ISDN which and $15 a month service which is free 6pm-8am and weekends. You are better off than some…

#32

I’m paying $30 and tax monthly for cable access! And that’s Canadian. Juno’s got some serious gonads if they think their less-than-admirable service is worth that.

I hope you have good luck getting a decent ISP, DDG. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts; I’d be pretty irritated if you were forced to drop access over Juno’s corporate cuntery.

FD.

#33

After much mutual soul-searching by myself and the Better Half (“What do we really want out of the Internet?”), the answer came back–“everything”. I told him, “It’s your money, so it’s your call.” He elected to drive over to the Springfield Best Buy yesterday and go with the e-Machines $399-with-rebates-including-printer-and-monitor and 1 year’s free MSN.

I pointed out, not very loudly, “If we just go with a year’s worth of Prodigy or somebody, that’s only $240.” But hey, a guy doesn’t get many chances in life to saunter into a Best Buy and tell the pimply-faced kid, in a lordly manner, “Yes, I’ll take one of those and one of those…” So I didn’t rain on his parade too much.

I did, however, interrupt the enthralled dialogue between the two of them on the ease of upgrades, availability of more RAM, etc. “We’re not interested in upgrades, we just want it for the Internet,” I said firmly, dragging a panting Better Half away to cool down over by the speakerphones.

And what a difference we have now–surfing the Internet at light speed. I feel like Geena Davis in Thelma and Louise, the morning after she and Brad Pitt…cough… you know…

Moving up from a 14400 modem to a V90, and changing from a 486 processor to “some kind of Celeron”, I dunno exactly what, it’s got a lot of Hertzs after its name. Woo-hoo! Windows Millenium looks just like Win95. And now La Principessa can play I Spy Spooky Mansion while Mom’s posting madly at the Straight Dope, no more arguments. “You’re always doing message board, it’s not fair!” So we are that demographic delight, a two-computer family (the other old one, the one that had Windows 3.1 installed on it, has been sent to the basement, to be eventually recycled into dishwasher components or something).

And to add the icing on the cake, evidently the Reader plumped for a T-1 upgrade while we were shopping yesterday, so my Internet cup overfloweth.

So I am now going out behind the garage to sacrifice a chicken to the Computer Gods in hopes that this whole thing won’t blow up in our face (dire warnings from the Best Buy kid about the dangers of not popping for the Best Buy Service Contract, etc.) and we’ll be worse off than when we started. I’m going to keep the free Juno e-mail, just in case the e-Machine doesn’t get the “oh, behave” chicken message from On High. Somehow I doubt whether Juno is signing up new users for anything, even free e-mail. But otherwise, looks like it’s buh-bye, Juno.

And Charles? I’d actually like to thank you for raising your prices 500% overnight–that was the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me. Bonzo looked up excitedly last night from his Pokemon MB and reported, “Hey, Mom, didja know, these smilies move!” Bless his little heart. And bless you, too, Charles, for being a clueless corporate twit.

#34

Well, congrats! What a wonderful ending!

And I hear that the eMachines are really OK. (I heard this on TechTV, which is geeky enough that I’d expect them to know one way or the other.) I’m sure for the Internet, it’ll serve you well for a while to come.

So you are going from a 486 and 14.4 to V90 and a Celeron?!?! Indeed, your Internet cup floweth over! I had no idea you were poking along on such slow hardware! Well, this is indeed great! Wonderful to have you “back” (before you had to leave again)!

#35

Yeah, of course that still is pretty slow. looks at the 4 downloads going at about 50k a piece and the 6 browsers open. I overheat my cable modem to the point where I have to unplug it and then wait for it to cool down.

a 56k modem… I can’t imagine going that slow:)

#36

Yes. But Prodigy (the company that ate our last ISP, FlashNet) more than makes up for the price with the annoyance of disappearing dial-up, vanishing webpages, and customer service reps who have mastered the art of referring you to someone in their company with even fewer brains and communications skills.

I have just spent several eons on the phone with their tech support genius, Manny Regrets, and I happily foresee bankruptcy proceedings for Prodigy in the not too distant future.
Or maybe they’ll be bought out by AOL.

#37

It looks like you’ve solved your problem, but here’s what I did. I use Juno Gold, paying $9.95 /mo. They were only going to raise me to $19.95, you must have really pissed someone off. I found that Peoplepc.com will give me service for $9.95. I called Juno to tell them to fuck off and die and they gave me back the $9.95 rate and a free month!!