Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

Dial-Up Connections

High-speed Internet is where it’s at, baby! But there are plenty of reasons why you may be among the 10 percent of the Internet-using population who connect via dial-up modem, slow though it is. Dial-up is a heck of a lot less expensive than broadband. And its availability is incredible—you can find a phone jack in almost any room in the civilized world, in places where the closest Ethernet or WiFi network is miles away.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: Laptop’s Lament: Away from the Cable Modem

When I’m home, I connect my laptop to my cable modem. But when I’m on the road, of course, I have to use my dial-up ISP. Is there any way to automate the switching between these two connection methods?

If there weren’t, do you think your question would have even appeared in this chapter?

The feature you’re looking for is in the Internet Options control panel. (Quickest way to open it: Open the Start menu; start typing Internet options until you see Internet Options in the results list; press Enter to open it.

Click the Connections tab, and then turn on “Dial whenever a network connection is not present.”

From now on, your laptop will use its dial-up modem only when it realizes that it isn’t connected to your cable modem.

To get online by dial-up, you need a PC with a modem—maybe an external USB model—and a dial-up account. You sign up with a company called an Internet service provider (or ISP, as insiders and magazines inevitably call them).

National ISPs like EarthLink and AT&T have ...