Cable Users Australia    http://www.cableusers.com.au

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Satellite

Austar    http://www.austar.com.au

Telstra    http://www.bigpond.com/broadband

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More and more ISPs are allowing wireless connections to their networks, 8011b is the choice at this time.

Wireless connections are subject to interference from other devices on the frequency.  The bandwidth is shared by other users.  It is very easy for other clients to limit your bandwidth.

As with all internet connections, up to date antivirus and firewalls are a must.  I would advise clients to only use secure connections, this includes email.  An ISP that uses a VPN connection is a must.

The 2.4 GHz wireless LAN band is shared with other users, perhaps devices in your own home.  Interference is normal and expected, you have been warned.

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Dial up

Some general information

Although the majority of users think their ISP is to blame for all their problems, most dial up modem problems are caused by badly made modems and less than perfect phone lines. Add to this the mixture of software, addware, viruses etc, I sometimes wonder how anyone manages to connect at all. 
ISPs have a constant battle to keep their modem banks up to date and secure.  The better, not necessarily the larger, ISPs do know something about modems.  It's true that not many ISPs can look at individual modem connections to fault find from your computer to their modem banks, but a few can.  Ask your ISP what  level of support they provide.

Do not use long (2m+) flat ribbon phone extension cables for modem connections as these non twisted pair cables allow electrical and radio frequency noise to enter the circuit.

Try connecting without other devices on the line so you get an idea of how good it can be.

Disconnect your modem from the phone line if there is an electrical storm coming.

It's a good idea to leave the modem disconnected from the phone line when not in use, could save you a lot of money if a program decides to dial up without your knowledge.

Do yourself a favour and buy an external modem, this does not mean a cheap USB type either.
You can go for a $200.00 job in a fancy case or a $80.00 standard conexant chipset model in a plain case that will give you better connections, its up to you.

Some (few) internal WinModems can give you a good connection speed if your phone line is better than average but use computer resources and are harder to fault find.  You would be well advised to purchase a real modem (external hardware based).

Avoid USB WinModems, one day I may even find one that works.

Speed is not everything, its the data throughput you want; a V90 / V92 speed above 45k is good if your modem is not retraining or renegotiating.

Check your download speed and time for a known file.  Avoid software that claims to speed up your downloads, it's better to configure your software and modem properly yourself.

If you are still using a 33k6 or lower speed modem and you start having connection problems after your ISP upgrades their modems, throw it away, NOW.

Your ISP should be able to advise you what modems work best with their modem banks and what modems to avoid, if they can't, change your ISP.

Detailed Modem Information

If your computer is using an internal V92 56k Lucent Winmodem, It's important that you are using the latest driver for this type of modem.
I have found that even with well known brand name modems that the generic Lucent driver often gives better connections.
It would be worthwhile trying the latest driver to see if this helps. 
This site has the latest driver:
http://www.agere.com/entnet/modem_driver2.html