I was chatting with Walter Scott, one of my local friends and a Terry’s Computer Tips Newsletter reader, at lunch last week. Walter has a new notebook computer and was trying to come up with a good solution for dialup access for two purposes.

First, when he travels, he wants to have a good dialup solution with local phone numbers in most of the country. Many hotels have wired or wireless Internet access, but not all of them — or they charge an outrageous price like $10/day for high-speed access.

Second, he wanted a backup connection via dialup for those times when he has cable Internet troubles (ever notice that your phone still works, even though your electric utility has lost power in your area of town?) — I sent my August 29th Terry’s Computer Tips Newsletter via dialup on Hurricane Katrina Day — no power, but my notebook had its battery and my telephone worked.

I mentioned to Walter that he could Get Free NetZero Internet Access for 10 hours per month.

Read Walter’s comments about free dialup from NetZero