How do I change my Username/Password on my PC?

How do I change the number I'm dialing?

I connect...but nothing happens.

It sounds like the dial up connection is successful, and you are able to connect to us.
All that our service provides is a connection to the Internet, after which you can use Internet Explorer or Netscape, for example, to browse web-pages on the web. Next time you attempt to connect, and you see the connection window shrink to the bottom right of the screen, see if there is a small icon with two computer screens near your clock, on the bottom right.
If so, you're connected.

How do I activate an email address or change my password?

To make changes to your account, such as changing or adding an email address, or changing the password on your email or login id, you can just submit your request via our secure Tech Support form.

Busy signals occur for two reasons; the server you're dialing into may only be able to support up to a certain number of people, or there may be an outage between the telephone company and/or the Internet backbone lines. The latter is particularly true if the busy is a "fast busy", or a busy signal that beeps faster than normal.

Our service providers, (the companies that manage the various networks) have what is known as an Idle-Disconnect. If the server does not detect any activity as far as uploading or downloading information, it will assume that the connection is not being used, and will disconnect it to make room for other members to connect. This time-out is between 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the network you're on.

All the SurfBest lines support 56k connections. Speed limiting factors include problems with local phone lines, possible problems with the server you're dialing into, or simply an old or outdated modem. Assuming that your modem is 56k (any PC purchased today is nearly guaranteed to come with a 56k modem) you may want to try upgrading the modem drivers to the newest drivers. That often helps. The manufacturer of your modem may also have some information about "modem strings", or commands that you can have automatically sent to your modem prior to every connection, that can help eliminate such problems. Lastly, you can try dialing into a different access number in your area, to eliminate a possible problem with the server. If there are no local numbers on your given network in your area, we can try switching you to a different network all together.

To check if there is another access number available to you, you can visit our list of numbers here.

For help upgrading or researching known problems with your modem, you can visit this link; www.modemhelp.org.
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All you'll need to change when traveling should be the access number. It is recommended that you view our list of access numbers prior to traveling, and try to locate local access numbers for the area that you'll be visiting. Make a note of these numbers, and when you're out of town just use those access numbers to connect. Note that you can only connect with access numbers on the given SFB network you're on. For instance, if you're login ID ends with @usa, you're on SFB2. An SFB3 access number will not work for you to connect to; only SFB2 access numbers will work.

While you can have SurfBest configured on more than one computer, you can only connect with one PC at a time. This is because SurfBest pays its providers based on the number of login id's that have connected each month. It is possible to share an Internet connection across a LAN, or Local Area Networks. However, SurfBest does not provide any support for LAN's. In order to have to PC's connected at once, you can purchase a second account for the second PC. 
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Yes, there is a set, per-connection limit. This limit is between four and five hours. This limitation is set by our providers, which is why this limitation is very common with many Isp's You may be disconnected after you've reached this limit, but you won't have any problems reconnecting again within 1-3 minutes.

This limitation exists to prevent connection hogs, users that leave the connections running all the time, which makes it difficult for other users to connect, and can also cause other user's connections to be slower. 
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Yes, you can certainly try any of our other networks. If you are experiencing problems with the network you're on, and switch to other access numbers on that network has not helped, we, in fact, recommend trying one of the other networks.

To do this, first you'll want to find local access numbers on any of the given networks. Then, based on which network has available numbers that are local to you, we can choose one to either switch you to or setup a temporary, 3-day test account for you. You can find a list of access numbers here: http://www.surfbest.net/access.htm

Once you've located access numbers on one or more other networks, let us know either via our tech support form here, or email our support staff, surfbest@surfbest.net. We'll setup the account, and email back the confirmation.
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Many ISP's software will adjust the Internet Explorer settings to reflect the name of the given ISP.

There are a few possible causes for this:

First, if you're not connected to the Internet, your browser will not be able to open any web-pages, because it can't "Find" them.

Next, there could be a typo in the address you entered, or in the link of the website you were on prior. This happens quite frequently, as web-pages and their content change frequently.

Second, if you are connected, (the small icon of two computer screens is displayed next to your clock, on the Start Bar) but no pages will load at all, and your email doesn't work either, there's one of two possible problems.

First, the software on your PC may be corrupted or damaged. Dialup Networking, the Windows component that we use to connect you to SurfBest, has a tendency to stop functioning at random. Though this is a fairly rare occurrence, it is encountered frequently enough to warrant writing special instructions on how to uninstall and reinstall that component:

Warning: Before starting these instructions, make sure you have your Windows CD available. 

How do I make Internet Explorer auto-dial? 

Internet Explorer can be configured to load any web-page you like. Our setup utility usually configures Internet Explorer to automatically load SurfBest.net as your default start page, but if you did not run the setup utility, it may not be set to SurfBest.

SurfBest does have a Filtered Service, available from http://www.filteredservice.com  that will filter out most inappropriate web content.