My grandfather lives in Preston, Lancashire, UK and is STILL not internet active (well he's 78 but that's besides the point), any suggestions on the least expensive way for him to get online? I've asked him to look into it but he pretty much has no clue and of course no computer.

There are charities that donate ex-corporate computers to pensioners - can't remember the name but there are a few about. As for ISPs it depends on where he lives. If he is in a cabled area then NTL do a 128k cable service for £17ish/month and it's supposed to be very good. ADSL is another option - I think the cheapest is £22/month.

These obviously provide a service that will help him to *like* using the net - most people who have never used it don't realise that you sometimes have to *wait* for the pages to load!

Lastly 56k is good but I can't suggest a good low-user ISP - perhaps others know of a good one. I use Freeserve Hometime at £12/monthish for off-peak, but he needs a 24hr account really. They don't publish any limits and I have been using it for ~6hrs a day for a couple of years now.

Our small village is actually getting ADSL in October though - that made my July when I found out! (getting arrested for firearms offences undid that, but what the hey!)

(edit: don't ask about the arrest, just make sure you don't ever buy a blank firing gun from France and try to get it into the UK!)

Gareth

Cool, thanks for the response....he's near Manchester in a rented house (that he's been in for 25years or so) so I'm not sure what he's got, besides the five channels he gets on the telly. I rung him up today and he was playing with his shortwave radio talking to someone in Ohio of all places.... Anyhow do you have any links to some isp's in the area? I even check dell.com/uk for some computers for him but was wondering if there were any less expensive options where he could just turn on a box and be on the internet.

Cheers!

Anyhow do you have any links to some isp's in the area?

The UK doesn't really have a concept of local ISPs like the US does. The locality only becomes important when you are talking about DSL or cable modem access.

Are you aiming for dialup or DSL/cable ?

If you want DSL then there are lots of ISP, but in the end the company who actually installs and runs the network is BT (British Telecoms) I wouldn't recommend BT as an ISP through.

You can check whether he is likely to get DSL by going here:

http://www.aaisp.net.uk/

Enter his phone number or postcode to check availability.

If you go for DSL then I would recommend:

- A&A http://www.aaisp.net.uk/
- Plusnet http://www.plus.net/

If he is going to be the one phoning the ISP when things go wrong then Plusnet would probably be best. If you are going to be the one contacting them then A&A are good because they are a small ISP who are good at dealing with techies, without resorting to "reinstall your drivers" at every turn. Plusnet are a little cheaper, both will supply a pre configured router.

If you want to go for cable then you need to work out which cable company covers his area

http://sales.ntl.com/newdesign/newindex.jsp?new=Y&cust=ntlcom_intbroadband
http://www.telewest.co.uk/Package-Designer/get-address.do

Again you need to enter his postcode to work out whether he is covered.

If you want dialup then there are plenty of ISPs to choose from. There are all sorts of complicated packages that will give him certain amounts of toll free Internet access, but I've been out of touch with dialup for years now so someone else will have to fill in the details on that...

...but taking a quick look, for £14.99 a month he can get unlimited access from Freeserve:

http://www.freeserve.co.uk/time/anytime/

...and Plusnet do something similar:

http://www.plus.net/info2/residential/res_fixed_connectstandard.html

I even check dell.com/uk for some computers for him but was wondering if there were any less expensive options where he could just turn on a box and be on the internet.

He is always going to have to plug some cables in. The combination of a PC with builting Ethernet from Dell and a pre-configured router from a DSL ISP is about the easiest you are going to get, without having someone plug it all together for him.

I my experience the combination of an inexperienced user and a "cheap" PC is a receipe for disaster...

Dell do some pretty cheap PCs now anyway. Their cheapest PC (with the memory upped to 256 and a floppy added) comes out at £568.04 and that includes 3 years next day on-site service. Might want to upgrade the monitor as well though.

Another option worth considering is a "no contract" pay-as-you-go option where there are no monthly fees at all and you pay simply the local call rate for the time you are connected.

Before I moved to ADSL, I was registered with two ISP's (hey it is free!) - www.zoom.co.uk & www.virgin.net both were great and unless I really hammered the service with overnight downloads never cost me more than £10 / month (worth about 17 hours surf time, off peak)

Downsides are obvious, if you want to use the service regularly during peak hours, you may as well be on contract @ £12 - £15 / month

Off peak local calls, 6pm - 8am weekdays and ALL weekend cost 1p / minute
Peak rate local calls, 8am - 6pm weekdays cost a smidge under 4p / min

Cheers, Sim

I use freeserve, you can pick the disc up at PC World or Dixons, both of which are big chain stores here, you can have various packages, but he might well have pay-as-you-go.
They also install Freeserve with the bundle when you buy one of their computers. They're competitive, but not the cheapest to buy a PC from, but, in his case, give the reassurance of being able to go into the store, or phone a help line for advice.
If he sources a computer elsewhere, I got a Freeserve disc in the post this week, I've put it aside, so that I can snail mail it to him, for you, if the need arises.

Thanks! It's enough info to be dangerous and I quickly ruled out cable, neither cable company serves his area and dsl is only available 512kbps.

512kbps is the "standard" speed for home DSL in the UK, most people don't have the 1Mb and 2Mb version.

Unless, like me, they live in Central London :P

6Mbps anyone

I've (only) got 2mbps through AA. 6mbps from Bulldog is nice but doesn't it drop down to 512kbps during peak hours? Then again most people would be at work during those hours so it's not that important