Just found the "Which" report I alluded to above (Sept 06), where they looked at such features as ease of set-up, cost, connectivity, reliability, customer service, online and telephone help.
No 1 was Zen, 2 was Global, 3 was (wait for it!) Waitrose.
Pipex was 9th, Plusnet 10th, Demon 11th, Virgin net 13th, Tesco 16th, BT 20th, Tiscali 21st, and my old friend AOL a miserable 26th out of 30!
I left BT when we were still on dial-up as I couldn't understand their geeky instructions when our connection kep dropping out.
LesB
You should be able to stop dial-up popping up when you don't want it by going into Internet Properties and checking the box that says "Never use dial-up" or "Never dial a connection".