Where we live (not far from Hastings believe it or not) we can't get broadband other than an idiotically restricted and overpriced satellite connection so are stuck with third world dial-up. After a period of paying too much for a miserable service from Paradise we settled on the only $10 plan we could find at the time, which was KOL. This on the premise that any dial-up service was going to suck anyway so at least we should try to pay as little for it as possible.
KOL has certainly fulfilled our worst expectations. Email vanishes unpredictably into a black hole, connections are often poor quality and slow (probably not the fault of our line since sometimes they are reasonable), bandwidth is spread so thin that more often than not there is a 30-second wait after clicking on something before any sign of network activity kicks in, and service is absolutely terrible. We have been trying to complain about the email for three months now. Today, at last, after yet another very angry letter threatening all kinds of perdition if we didn't get some response, an actual human being finally rang to take our complaint. We eagerly await the result.
If your mother really only uses email, she is probably better off with a cheap capped service from another provider. If she (or anyone else) wants the security of not having to worry about exceeding any limits for minimal expenditure, KOL might be an acceptable option as long as the person in question has a very high tolerance of throughput speeds that often drop to less than even 1 kps (!) and doesn't care about dropped connections, multiple redials to get a connection, false error messages that insist every web site you click on is unreachable, an smtp server that for some inexplicable reason waits a half-minute every time you try to send an email, and a pop3 server that usually times out the first time you try to connect to it, forcing you to do it again. In my opinion KOL is run either by children or incompetants. It certainly doesn't act like a serious business. However you get what you pay for and it might be worth the cost if you are prepared to put up with all the nonsense.
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