Consumers who wish to explore the world wide web can now choose
from among a wide variety of Internet access providers. They can choose from the likes of
America Online or Compuserve. They could go with AT&T or MCI or a different long
distance phone company. One could even choose one of the classic national providers like
Netcom or a small, locally based company. Every consumer wants to make an intelligent
decision in this multi-colored ISP circus. As with any complicated decision, there are a
series of steps that should be followed and a series of questions that should be answered
before a final choice is made.
The first decision the consumer must make is whether or not he/she wants a true
Internet connection. Millions of users subscribe to services such as America Online,
Compuserve, and Prodigy. These companies do provide email and information services, but
they do not offer actual Internet connectivity that would allow telnet or ftp. If the user
wants a true Internet connection instead of simply an email service, one of the three
thousand plus Internet Service Providers must be approached.
The next question that should be answered by the consumer that wants a true
Internet connection is whether guaranteed company stability or personal customer service
is more important. Stability is a very important issue in the Internet Service Provider
industry. The access market is now so volatile that many of the small, local providers
will assuredly be forced out of business by the telecommunications giants. This does not
imply that all or even most local ISP's are soon going to fail, but does point out that if
a user does choose a local ISP as his/her access provider the risk of that company failing
is much greater than the risk of MCI or Sprint going out of business. Conversely, the
large telecommunications are likely to have much less personal customer service than a
locally owned ISP. If the consumer is a novice that expects to need a good about of
personal help from their access provider, it would be best to choose a local ISP that has
been in business for at least a year and has a good reputation. On the other hand if the
user is experienced and expects stability to be far more important than personal customer
service, one of the telecommunications companies is probably the best choice.
One of the most important things to check before buying internet access from an
ISP is to make sure that a local phone number for dial in access is available. If the
company does not have a Point of Presence (POP) within the local call distance, a
different ISP should be chosen unless the consumer is willing to pay long distance phone
charges. Of course if the potential web user lives in a rural community, long distance
charges might not yet be avoidable. Some companies do offer one eight hundred numbers for
their dial in access, but while the phone call is then free the ISP normally attaches an
additional service charge.
Another thing that it is good to do before signing up with an ISP is to make
sure that it supports all of the software and services that you wish to use. Does the ISP
allow PPP or SLIP accounts? Does it offer server space for personal web pages? Is this
server often busy; can files on this server be readily accessed? Does it offer any web
tools or any other software as part of the subscription or do these have to be purchased
separately? Or to put it simply, it is essential to know exactly what services come with
the subscription before anything is signed and agreed to.
A common problem among small Internet Service Providers is that they do not have
a good connection to the internet themselves. Consequently, it is always good to ask the
people at the ISP about their network topology, the actual set up of the physical wires
that connect their computers to the rest of the internet. While every one of the ISP's
workers probably will not be able to answer these questions, there should be someone that
can explain exactly how their servers and network are connected to the internet. If no one
at the ISP can explain their network topology with at least some intimacy, this could be a
warning of future problems. Even if the network topology can be well explained, it could
still be inadequate. A good indicator of an inadequate network connection is that the
percentage of the network's capacity used during peak hours is dangerously high. If the
network connection cannot carry as much traffic as its users request, lags and delays
result. Identifying ISP's in this situation before using them is somewhat difficult. This
best way to stay away from an ISP with this problem is to talk to consumers who have dealt
with that company before and ask them about any lags or delays they experianced. The
bottom line is that ISP's with problems of this type should be avoided.
Two indicators of a good ISP is a twenty-four hour a day customer service phone
number and a low customer to modem ratio. Twenty-four hour a day customer service
guarantees that the consumer can get assistance whenever he/she needs it. Most Internet
exploring does not happen during the business day. Actually the peak hours of internet use
are often between eight and ten in the evening. Consequently, assistance from the ISP
should be available even outside of office hours. The other indicator reflects the
frequency that a user can expect to get a busy signal while dialing in. If an ISP has many
customers and few modems, its dial-in number is likely to often be busy and therefore
unusable. Conversely, a low customer to modem ratio greatly reduces the odds of all the
modems being busy and increases the chances that an Internet connection will be available
when it is needed. Most experts recommend that a customer to modem ratio be no higher than
ten to one.
The last thing that should be used in choosing from among the available Internet
providers is price. Obviously no one wants to pay exorbitantly high prices for an Internet
connection, but the lowest price available should often be avoided as well. This is
because the lowest priced ISP is often the one that advertises the lowest price that has
the worst service record, has the worst network topology, and has the highest customer to
modem ratio. Most national ISP's are charging around twenty dollars a month for unlimited
access. As a rule any price much lower than this should probably be avoided, and any price
much higher than this should be questioned unless a high speed connection or other special
services are involved. With most of the major ISP's offering essentially the same $19.95
per month subscription rate, price has for the most part become a mute issue.
When choosing an Internet Service Provider, it must be realized that good and
bad choices are both widely available. The good choice can be made by following a few
simple steps:
