Who are the best for pay-as-you-go dialup these days. I currently use UTVInternet from home, but half the time I get no response. Is there a better one out there?
Is the crap response a feature of my phone line or the ISP?
It's hard to say without more detail. There are many factors that could contribute to such problems - Windows, modem drivers, modem itself, browser, phone line extensions, phone line, exchange etc. Without more information, investigation and a process of elimination it's impossible to pin it on any of these in particular. For what it's worth I used to use UTV dial-up but rarely found it unreliable (e.g. problems connecting or being bumped off once connected) even with a crappy WinModem and a long phone extension lead.