If you plan to place your trades online, you must have Internet access. Whether or not you should use dial up or a broadband connection will be contingent upon the trading platform/broker you use and your style of trading. Even though you could use dial up access to do your trading, you should get either cable or DSL broadband access. The cost of broadband access is not much more than dial up yet the speed is exponentially greater. Remember, time is money in trading and if it takes you several extra seconds for your trade to be executed, the market could move away from you.