Need "Internet for Dummies"

Factual Questions
#1

Ok, laugh, then try to answer, please.

For years we’ve had dialup internet, via Earthlink. 24kbs was a really rockin’ connection.

A couple of months ago we got a card that works like a cell phone, through Alltel, that really speeded things up.

Now, do we have any need to keep paying Earthlink for their service? Can’t we just switch to gmail and drop the $30 a month payment to Earthlink?

I understand that we’ll lose the dial-up capability, but we’re not using that any more anyway.

Enlighten the un-geeky one, please. :o

#2

It sounds like you are paying for wireless internet service through Alltell, so you shouldn’t need to be paying Earthlink any more. I’d give them a call first to make sure- 1-800-alltel1. Yes, anyone can sign up for a free email account with G-mail.

#3

Yes, we are paying Alltel for wireless, so hope we won’t need the dial-up Earthlink in the future. Thanks.

#4

Yes, you should be able to drop Earthlink now that you have the Alltel thing working.

One thing you will want to do if you are using Earthlink’s e-mail, is not only set up another e-mail (like gmail or yahoo for free), but you may want to grab any mail you want to keep before you close the Earthlink account. I’m sure earthlink has a web-access page that you can get to from your alltell (you don’t have to use Earthlink’s e-mail application) to access your e-mail.
If nothing else, you’ll want to grab your address book so you can tell all your contacts your new e-mail address. (I made the mistake of switching and not telling quite everybody, so I “lost” some contacts).