JoiExpress: Dialup at DSL speed?

[itim100]

My dad has decided to switch to joiinternet.com as a dial up isp. They have a JoiExpress version of their dial up which requires a proprietary program that he is willing to spring for.

I was unable to find any further info on how it works. It claims DLS speed and 10x faster than dial up and such. Anybody used this JoiExpress or the same technology (über dialup)? I am worried that the acceleration/compression or whatever it uses will be so proprietary that we won't be able to share the connection via network or use common programs that require a real isp. Is it legit? Should we get JoiExpress or the regular joi dial up?

I sincerely apologize if this is an extremely tired subject!

Thanks for any help.

[Como]

dialup simply wont go at DSL speeds...with the right compression and decent lines you may get 2-3 tiems faster than regular Dialup, but not near dsl.

as to weather or not you should go for it or not, i dont know.

[JDXNC]

I haven't used that service, but Artera is a similar service, which you can use on any ISP, it compresses everything before being downloaded to your computer. BUT images all look like crap... simple as that, you can change the settings for better appearence, but then its just as slow as without it, so no point. I would say its not worth it at all. If you want to try Artera, they have a free 30 day trial, so you can try it out for yourself, see how you like it. I'm sure they are pretty much the same thing, so don't hold your breath. I got rid of it 3 days after I tried it, using a simple cache server on my 56k connection to server the entire lan helped a lot more than that crap.

HERE (http://www.arteraturbo.com/Content/home.asp) is the link for Artera so you can try it out, and I just checked, its a 14 day trial.

[Syx]

All of these "super fast dialup" services are just dialup, and they use a program to compress webpages and images, ONLY, the compression doesn't affect the webpages/text documents, but it makes images look really crappy, would you pay the extra money just to save a few seconds downloading images on webpages? :rolleyes: Sure it could provide a little useful sometimes if you want, but broadband is always best.

[seadave77]

I used to use Joi Express. The program that comes with it has a setting for how much compression you want. The lowest compression setting you can hardly tell a difference but the highest setting really looks bad. It only compresses web pages though so I wouldn't worry about the compatability problems. If you're on dialup I think its worth the extra three bucks to save a little time. Just realize it's not DSL speed.

Clint

[Como]

try it on a slower computer, youll find uncompressing the data takes more time than downlaoding it in full! :p

[don256us]

I think that it also bears to note that downloads are no faster. Browsing only. So when you find a file to download, it will be at exactly dial-up speed.

[MiNdWaRp]

yeah don't fall for that 10x faster ****, Images either get REALLY compressed or they don't get downloaded at all

[itim100]

yeah, thats what i suspected, a crappy uber compression browser that doesn't affect actual bandwidth at all. Thanks guys.

In my area, all we can get is dialsuck or comcast, and my dad hates comcast for no apparent reason, says they're a bad company (maybe, but you can't beat 3.1Mbps down here...), so i'm not even allowed to pay to get broadband. ph33r my woes.

Thanks again.