Hello Andrew, You rail against Telstra, but where I am, there is zero choice. For mobile coverage, there are a few Telstra black spots where Optus has coverage, but far more of the reverse. I am cursing Telstra as there is ADSL either side of me, by something like four kilometers at the closest. My copper pair is about 1,000 meters to the base of a mobile phone tower, where there is ISDN equipment, but not ADSL. It used to be a very poor quality 11 plus kilometers to the nearest exchange, but now straight to fiber at the base of the mobile phone tower. Add to that that NBNCo is not due to pass here for quite some time, and that my mobile looses signal every now and then, sometimes when dry, not just wet foliage. When NBNCo take over the copper network, Telstra/Big Pond will no longer do dial up, and I will be forced to go 3G (that is the best the tower will support) on Big Pond. At least that way over contract gigabytes will be speed shaped, rather than an extra ten dollars for each over plan gigabyte that is the Telstra plan. Think about what it will take to get a DVD .ISO, currently not possible on my dial up. I am fortunate that I can visit a local friend with ADSL now and then for some updates and .ISO images. Think about what it would be like trying to cope with the Windows Updates pushed out without warning. I do not think much of Telstra, but that the other majors are even worse. Taking an on topic point, have you ever heard of being able to activate a USB modem under Linux? I gather many, even most, can be used, after activation, but the activation requires Windows, with a vague nod to Apple. I have even seen trouble, quite a few years back, with a Windows Netbook, one of the early ones that was also available with Linux. It belonged to a German national who brought it with him, and he had enormous trouble getting activation of anything. He even grabbed an update or two on a USB stick, and still did not work. As to reading any replies, that depends on the status of Telstra's modem pool, whether they answer, and whether they will let me log in, then whether the networking is functional. I suspect that there may be a problem with resetting and being ready when a Windows user just drops the line rather than logging out. However I have had it cut me off well under the ten hours that any one session may run up to, the dropping the connection happening from their end. They appear to not be looking after in this last time window before dropping the service. Regards, Mark Trickett