Downloading w/dialup...

[WonderWild]

How painfully slow is it? I want to get an ipod but I have dialup. How bad is it to download music & video?

[Soxfan Mom]

I'm sorry to report that it is very slow. I don't have an iPod but my brother does. He does not, however, have a computer, so I would download from iTunes for him. He wanted this 7-minute Cheech and Chong routine that must have taken 45 minutes to download.

We just upgraded to high-speed. It's only $10 more/month. Totally worth it.

[nolonger]

I just recently upgraded from dial-up. I HIGHLY recommend a download manager that will allow you to pause and resume downloads. Getting cut off right before a long download finished or having someone demand to make a phone call and cut off something you'd been trying to get for hours was a constant aggravation.

Depending on how fast your connection is and how busy the internet is, an mp3 can take between 20-45 minutes. On the other hand, a full-length feature film or a single-CD Linux distro would take a week and a half to two weeks where we didn't use the phone much except for voice mail and briefly returning phone calls.

It was definitely doable and definitely worth it for a low-income homeschooling family that was relying on the internet for a big chunk of our educational and entertainment needs, but I am glad to finally have broadband.