analog dialup modem phone number needed for line testing, usa

[Paul in Houston TX]

Anyone know of an analog dialup modem phone number
that I can use for line testing?
United States

 

[casey.o]

Anyone know of an analog dialup modem phone number
that I can use for line testing?
United States

Years ago, some libraries still had BBSs. You could call their number
and get their catalog of books. This was after the internet began. I
dont know if this still works.

Also, therei s a newsgroup which lists private BBSs. I guess a few of
them still exist.

try alt.bbs

 

[Paul]

Anyone know of an analog dialup modem phone number
that I can use for line testing?
United States

Houston has a FreeNet.

http://www.ghofn.org/info/registration-info.html

I'm guessing 966-1234 is the modem pool, but
without appropriate terminology being used,
who can be sure ?

That's not going to test PPP for you, without
applying for an account. You'll likely get to
some login prompt. And get to listen to the
negotiation tones until you get there. Maybe you
could test through Hyperterminal or something,
just to see a prompt ?

*******

The FreeNet name, used to mean free dialup networking
with limited hours of usage a day. My local one back
home, allowed at least 1 hour per day. If the modem pool
was full, you could be booted after your hour was up.
Using it late at night, you could usually get more than
an hour from it.

I have a FreeNet in my current city as well. The first
year was "free", in the sense that I was asked for a
"minimum donation" at the end of the year. So I closed
the account. The only purpose of that account, was for
checking my ADSL ISP web page, when the ADSL would
drop. And I could not face a 45 minute phone queue wait,
to find out how long it would take to fix. I could
probably still use such a thing, but the outages since
I lost access to my FreeNet account, haven't been
more than 15 minutes. And there haven't been too many
of them.

*******

There might also be dialup ISPs that offer short trials.
But then, that would have no long-term test possibilities,
like if you wanted to test a modem two months from now.

Paul

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

Anyone know of an analog dialup modem phone number
that I can use for line testing?
United States

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.
I had completely forgoten about BBS and ISP dialup numbers.
Will find one that works from the lists and run
Modemtest.exe and telnet when at the remote locations.
And some of them are VERY remote!

 

[VanguardLH]

Anyone know of an analog dialup modem phone number that I can use for
line testing?

NetZero still has free dial-up Internet service (obviously pretty slow).
As I recall, there was a 10-month per quota cap. Searching for "free
dial-up Internet" finds lots of such services.

 

[RobertMacy]

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.
I had completely forgoten about BBS and ISP dialup numbers.
Will find one that works from the lists and run
Modemtest.exe and telnet when at the remote locations.
And some of them are VERY remote!

Today, EVERYTHING, goes through digitizaion at the telco.

Back in 70's, I found that the bandwidth was sharp edged at that '3kHz'
upper limit for any call that went thru a trunk line. But call across the
Bay Area? and you could easily shove a 10kHz square wave tone through the
phone connection.

 

[Jon Danniken]

The FreeNet name, used to mean free dialup networking
with limited hours of usage a day. My local one back
home, allowed at least 1 hour per day. If the modem pool
was full, you could be booted after your hour was up.
Using it late at night, you could usually get more than
an hour from it.

I have a FreeNet in my current city as well. The first
year was "free", in the sense that I was asked for a
"minimum donation" at the end of the year. So I closed
the account. The only purpose of that account, was for
checking my ADSL ISP web page, when the ADSL would
drop. And I could not face a 45 minute phone queue wait,
to find out how long it would take to fix. I could
probably still use such a thing, but the outages since
I lost access to my FreeNet account, haven't been
more than 15 minutes. And there haven't been too many
of them.

We had a freenet here locally that offered a free dialup terminal
account, and a $10/month PPP dialup account. The phone lines were given
priority to the PPP users, of course, but back in the early days of the
web, when most information was usenet and email, it was a really great
thing to have.

I became rather adept at using lynx and hterminal to download binary
files, back when webpages were rather simple things to navigate with a
text browser.

Jon

 

[Jon Danniken]

NetZero still has free dial-up Internet service (obviously pretty slow).
As I recall, there was a 10-month per quota cap. Searching for "free
dial-up Internet" finds lots of such services.

I looked into that last year, but although the page stating it are still
up, they no longer have free dialup. Clicking the link gets you to a
page stating, "Thank you for your interest in NetZero. The offer you
clicked on is no longer available. Please select one of our newest
offers providing excellent value", which shows broadband only service.

IIRC, it was a year two or so ago when they pulled it.

Jon

 

[BillW50]

I looked into that last year, but although the page stating it are still
up, they no longer have free dialup. Clicking the link gets you to a
page stating, "Thank you for your interest in NetZero. The offer you
clicked on is no longer available. Please select one of our newest
offers providing excellent value", which shows broadband only service.

IIRC, it was a year two or so ago when they pulled it.

I just checked my free dialup NetZero account and I'm still listed as a
free user. But no, it appears new accounts can't get free accounts
anymore. But here is where you find the dialup numbers.

http://my.netzero.net/s/numbers

 

[Jon Danniken]

I just checked my free dialup NetZero account and I'm still listed as a
free user. But no, it appears new accounts can't get free accounts
anymore. But here is where you find the dialup numbers.

http://my.netzero.net/s/numbers

Neat, so you're grandfathered in?

Jon

 

[BillW50]

In Jon Danniken typed:

Neat, so you're grandfathered in?

Apparently. They claim I have been signed up since 1999 which sounds
about right. I don't think I have used it more than 15 hours in the past
15 years though. I used it mainly for a backup in case the broadband
died.

 

[BillW50]

In (e-mail address removed) typed:

I still keep AOL dial up for the same reason. I was on it about an
hour a week ago.
Just be sure you turn off the graphics in your browser and it moves
right along.

Yes, me too. Although I don't think I have signed into AOL in 15 years.
Do you have one of those lifetime accounts too?

 

[BillW50]

In (e-mail address removed) typed:

No I still pay but it is pretty cheap.
Do they give you the life lock and other stuff?
I could get McAfee but that IS a virus.

I don't think I get life lock for free, just McAfee (no, I don't use it
either). The Lifetime account was only offered once back in '87 and it
cost $169 (only available to users that had their account for a year or
more). And it wasn't called AOL back then, but known as Quantum Link
(aka Q-Link). I also had CompuServe and The Source accounts back in that
era.

 

[BillW50]

In (e-mail address removed) typed:

I didn't really get on AOL until Prodigy dropped the classic service
(late 90s) I did play with the free disks. I had so many AOL IDs it
was hard to keep them straight. When I finally decided to pay, it took
20 minutes on the phone to straighten it all out so I could use the
credit card I wanted to use.
Every card I had was tied to a defunct AOL ID.

Wow interesting! I too had Prodigy for about two years in the 90's. I
did have another unlimited AOL accout, because if I ever changed the
other plan from Lifetime, you lost it. So I had that other one for a
while. I think it cost $24.95 or something per month. That Lifetime
account only allowed 5 hours free a month and then cost something like
$3.95 per hour after 5.

I still run AOL 7.0 with scripting turned off so most Email attacks
will just get me a gray box error (along with a lot of real sites)
7 is too dumb to auto open anything.

I was curious about that. I didn't even know that 7.0 still worked? Is
that the oldest one that still works? I haven't used AOL software in 10+
years. I remember v9 being the latest back then. What are they using
now?