Anyone use dial-up?

[chaz64]

Unfortunately, where I live (Philly suburbs) DSL is not currently available and broadband is pretty pricy, so right now I'm still using dial-up (AT&T Worldnet). Recently I find myself frequently getting disconnected while in the middle of a hand. I will sometimes even lose my seat at the table (I typically play at the Cryptos, two-tabling). I thought it might be a problem with their server, but last night I lost my connection completely while in the middle of a Turbo SNG at Stars (it was down to five). AT&T's software locked up, I ended up re-booting and by the time I got back, of course, it was over and I finished fourth (naturally). Has this happened to anyone else using dial-up? If you do use dial-up and have not had these problems can you please tell me whose service you are using?

Thanks for any responses.

[Foucault]

What stakes are you playing? It sounds like you have easily lost the price of a month or two of DSL already to disconnections even if you are playing small stakes. I don't think you can afford not to have a reliable internet connection.

[Ray Zee]

your cellphone company sells a wireless card which is just another cell phone number. you get fast speeds and good connections. 60 a month.

[flash8pro]

Don't remind me of the horrors of dial-up. I was recently in your situation - I lived in an area that only had dial-up available (but was surrounded by areas with broadband). Even in my new house I am just barely too far from the CO to get DSL, but I was able to get cable. I know it's pricey compared to DSL, but you typically get a 4Mb line, which is about 2.5x the speed of DSL (typical DSL speeds are 1.5Mb). If cable is available in your area, I'd highly recommend trying it at least. Like others have said, you'll probably lose a lot more just from disconnections, plus you'll have the benefit of high speed internet (fast downloads/surfing). Think of it as an investment in your poker career.

When I had dial-up, I had NetZero, and it would disconnect on me often as well. You might want to take a look at Broadband Reports to see what services are available in your area.

[robracing]

I have played a fair bit of poker on dial-up connections in hotel rooms around the World over the past 18 months, without problems (when there was no WiFi available). I was typically 3-tabling and running PT at the same time. (Full Tilt, Party, UB, SunPoker etc)

All poker sites are designed to be extremely bandwidth-light so that they run efficiently on dial-up connections.

I don't doubt that you are having problems, but you might find things improve by just switching to another ISP account.

[CORed]

Frequent disconnects on dialup can result from several things.
1. Bad ISP. Some ISP's who try to get by with inadequate connections will deliberately disconnect you so they can let somebody else connect without a busy signal. This is annoying when web browsing, but disastrous for poker.

2. Phone line problems. This can be wiring in your house, or on the phone network. If you get static or fading in and out with voice, you will also get disconnects with dialup.

3. Bad modem.

[Manimal]

To add onto what Red said, you can try to circumvent the problem by adding an initialization string to the modem to limit the connection speed. This would help stabilize the connection. Also, you can try removing and reinstalling your modem after downloading the most recent drivers from the manufacturer's website.