"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...

The local library wouldn't let me access any news server when my
phone service was out. I couldn't access Google Groups so my guess
is
that they had already had some fool abuse them, and blocked the IP
addresses.

I have a prepaid cellular modem as a backup. It's usually available
during an electricity outage and costs nothing when not enabled.

It has lower system priority than voice calls and isn't always faster
overall than my dialup because it halts completely at peak call times
such as around 9AM. Off-peak it's 10 - 20 times faster, almost enough
to keep up with Youtube.