Assessing a Service provider
This list is taken from the DTI's booklet "How the Internet can work for
you", with a few additions of our own.
The important questions first!
How good is their help? - ASK AN EXISTING USER!
You will need a little help in setting up at first, help if you move machines,
help when you update your software, and occasional help if problems occur. If
you decide to write your own web pages, you'll need help on that too. There is
ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSTITUTE for good help! And there's no way of telling how good
the help offered actually is except by asking someone who uses it locally! Find
out:
 | When its available by phone and how often the phone is busy or not
answered |
| Is it understandable, or is it full or jargon? |
| Do email questions get answered reasonably promptly and accurately? |
| Do the staff support the type of computer and operating system you will be
using? - Many of the problems vary with the type of machine. |
Do they offer a local call rate phone number for you to connect to?
This will reduce your phone bills considerably! Alternatively, you may take up
one of the deals where your internet use comes with your phone service. But see
our note on costs later.
What speed of access do they offer?
The standard highest speed for an ordinary phone line now is 56 kbps, with a
few offering more bps or you can purchase an ADSL or ISDN line from the phone company
for faster access.
How many users do they typically have per connection at their machines?
The more users compete for connections, the more often you're going to find
their phone line busy or the connection very slow indeed. Good providers offer
less than 30. The big providers have been known to top 300, causing severe
frustration all round!
Do they offer all the basic facilities you want?
See the DTI booklet for a fairly complete
list, but they should offer POP and SMTP connections, email, World-Wide Web,
space for web pages, and FTP.
How many email addresses will you get with your subscription?
There are usually different levels of package, offering you different numbers of
addresses, (eg for each person in the office) and different numbers of people
connecting at a time. Different addresses allow people to keep their email
private from each other, even if they all use the same computer to collect their
email. (You need the right email package, though: Pegasus is considered
excellent.) Different people connecting at the same time will each need a
machine with a modem, or a shared central connection from your network if you have one. Small
accounts typically offer one connection at a time, and 1 or 5 addressees. Large
accounts offer 256 or unlimited names. To distribute email to everyone's desk,
you need email server software on your own network, or someone prepared
to process it manually!
Price
You'll notice we haven't talked much about price in that list. That's because
for a basic starter connection, the amount you'll spend in staff time waiting
for a slow connection, or waiting for Help on a phone line that's always busy,
from a bad provider, will cost you far more than the difference in price between
service providers! However, the questions you should ask about price and other
facilities include:
| What's the monthly subscription, and is there a minimum sign-up period?
|
| How much time on-line do you get free, what are you charged for more time,
and are there special charges for fast access? |
| Does the subscription include space for your own web pages, and if so how
much space?
As a guide, the whole of MKCW's current site, including graphics and small
sites for 6 organisations takes around 1 MB space as at July 2005. A
large organisation's site, if created efficiently, and without sound or video, takes 10-15MB plus the space for any sound or video (they eat space!) and for any Word etc. documents you want to include. |
| Is there a setup charge? |
| Is the connection phone number at local rates or free with your phone
service? What rates apply to the time of day that you'll be using it? |
| How much is the Help line phone number? |
| Are you interested in on-line services such as business databases, and if
so, do they offer the ones you want cheaply? |
On-line services are usually available fairly competitively directly from the
service creators, but some Service Providers offer cheap access to certain
services. However, this is often at the expense of their performance in other
ways, so make sure you want what they offer!
Free or Pay?
There are still some free service providers around, who don't charge for the
internet account. (They will always charge for the phone calls).
However, there are drawbacks.
Free services survive on the level of advertising they get, or commission
from phone companies, so typically they will add adverts to emails, and force
you to start every session by connecting to an advertising page, etc. This takes
extra time and phone charge, and can get frustrating. They can also be mean as to
the number of lines they offer per 1000 users, so they can be very slow. And
helplines are usually very basic, and very expensive. If you just want email and
web browsing, it may be fine. If you want a website of your own and you don't
want to pay the earth for help, we'd suggest you pay. Good pay-for providers
currently include:
| Pipex - an international provider. A little costly, but with a real
commitment to service |
| Power Internet - a local MK provider with a similar commitment to service
and fairly low charges |
| Freeserve - a national provider who used to be free, but have now chosen
to charge to keep themselves going reliably. A fairly low level of adverts and
reasonably cheap providing you don't use the helpline too much. |
Providers to avoid:
| Compuserve - apalling locally, and with a worldwide bad reputation for
service to small users |
| AOL - a reputation for slow service and for slowing down your computer, but they offer a world-wide service, generally very reliably |
However, we'd stress that this changes, and that service levels vary from are
to area, so ask around locally and find people who already use them.
Independent or All-In with your Phonecalls?
Increasingly the modern trend is for companies to provide normal phone call
services and throw in free calls to the internet too, or to provide a free
dial-up line for your calls to the internet, with a hefty monthly charge.
Our advice is to read their terms and conditions very carefully, particularly
the fine print! Examples of catches include:
| a "free call" allowance but with internet calls and 0845 numbers (usually
used for pay-for connections) excluded |
| a good deal on your internet but a very high minimum call charge for
normal short (usually cheap) local phone calls |
| good deals, but at times of day when you won't use them |
| a good deal for say 2 hours a month, but high rates you if you use the web
for more than that (10-20 hours usage a month is normal once you and your
friends get used to it) |
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