Where are you?
I have connected to 3 or 4 different ISP's in the UK without any problems. I've never tried Compuserve/AOL though because they have proprietry software and in the past charged too much for their services. ClaraNet, LinuxUK and Freeserve are examples of UK ISP's that are fine. If you are in the US, there must be thousands of accessible ISP's.