OT: Courier madness.

Try

Assuming you can GET on-line.

Which is not good enough, since we cant: not for bloated websites.

I just got off the phone to Interlink, who seem to be what may work for us.

they collect within a couple of hours, have never lost or damaged

Any chance of 3G/GPRS etc with an external antenna?

I have found parcel2go.com quite good. Not tried it on a modem though so it may or may not fit your requirement in that respect, although it seems to match the other bits.

I sincerely hope some couriers go bust soon.

Is dialup upload satellite download sanely priced yet?

NT

None whatsoever. Even mobile phones dont work.

we do use them, but the website is too ponderous to do from the factory: which involves more delay and out of hours work. etc.

currently best price performance is a modem. Its OK for internal stuff since I wrote the internal site with efficiency in mind. It cant cope with seriously bloated web sites though.

Can you have a second telephone line? I ask because you can bond two dialup lines.

I understand the frustration, I used dialup since 1986 and actually only went Broadband because the dialup service I used was withdrawn. Soon after moving to broadband I noticed things went slower - not re shared bandwidth, but websites "stuffing the channel" with flashy drivel when all you wanted as fast zip-zip service. Stupid web development failing to properly benchmark sites for different pipes.

Another modem/line and bond the lines? Proxy cache at your end with aggressive caching - a lot of the crap on their websites could be large quantities of stupid images? Just a thought...

I do feel for you though. Have iPhone but no 3G here, and stuff is pitiful on a link of similar speed to yours.

Tried turning off images and style sheets within the browser? or adding a local caching proxy server?

There are a few services which strip and compress web data for faster download speeds on dial-up. If you can host your own proxy at an intermediate location you could try running something like Betsie for a text-only version of websites.

Owain

Good points. I'll think about both.

Have you thought about sticking a copy of squid or similar in as a proxy server to eliminate fetching all the static stuff over and over?

BUT the machine with the modem is a PeeCee.

I'd have to do a dial and drop linux box with squid on it. Yuk.

Also, Internet exploder does cache a bit anyway.

In message , The Natural Philosopher writes

You haven't said how much business you might be putting their way

My local sales manager for APC lives out your way, email me at snipped-for-privacy@cetltd.com and I'll send you her mobile number

Or use the windows version of squid:

One of the problems is that they are franchises and the quality of the service is only as good as the local franchisee. Having said that, I've used APC for years and they have always been very reliable. Telephone contact is good - we even have the number of our local delivery driver and he will phone if he is likely to be later than usual. I have no idea what the online booking is like, as I don't do that, but, while we are not on dial up, our broadband connection is very slow.

Colin Bignell

I've just emailed the number of his local sales manager

the website is fairly simple and straightforward

Dial on demand with linux isn't too hard. Squid's straightforward too.

Linux users often forget to mention that (nearly?) all the good open source software also runs on windows so there is no need for a linux box for squid (or anything else useful), just run the windows version on the same PC and save energy.