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How to Choose an ISP
Availability
First things first: what are your options? Can you even get DSL or digital cable in your area if you want it? Do you have a clear view of the southern sky (if you live in the northern hemisphere)? Availability of service may severely narrow your pool of options right off the bat.
Necessity
Likewise, so will necessity. Are you looking for service for your home or business? If for home, how many computers do you expect to have online at the same time? If a business, how big are you? Will you need networking capabilities? Would a temporary service outage create havoc in your office? Dialup may be totally inappropriate for your needs. Likewise, so might a lack of parental controls.
Cost
Once availability and necessity have narrowed the field, you're ready to move on to the grayer areas. For most people, cost will be the next most important factor in choosing an internet service provider.
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Does the ISP you're considering charge a setup or installation fee (and if so, what?)?
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Do they offer a flat-rate or metered account (can you pay less if you surf less, do you have to pay more if you surf more)?
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Do they charge extra depending on time of day/week?
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Do you have to sign a contract for a certain period of time (like 1 year)?
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Is there an early cancellation penalty charged if you're not happy with the ISP? You don't want to get stuck with a lousy internet service provider (unless, of course, no internet service provider at all is your only other option).
Experience
However important brand name recognition is to you in any other product you buy, it should be the same when choosing an internet service provider. Is the company an industry stalwart that's had years of upgrades, fine-tuning their services and ironing out all the bugs? Conversely, are they so big that they tend to overload their lines, which causes frequent delays in service, slower page-loads and occasional connection drops?
Support
With most of the familiar mainstream ISPs you'll probably have no trouble finding live support any hour of the day or night, any day of the week. But how personable is the staff; how knowledgeable? Many small ISPs make up in friendliness and personal attention what they lack in 24/7 access to support. If reliability and consistency of your connection is critical, then experience is undoubtedly a factor to consider in choosing an internet service provider. But keep in mind that some of the younger upstarts may offer a handful of innovative, exceptional products and services more catered to your individual needs. This is especially true for businesses, whose needs generally exceed the cookie-cutter features offered by the consumer-oriented big name ISPs.
Speed
We all like speed; we live in a fast-paced world. No one likes to wait in line and, likewise, no one likes to wait online. How much is immediate gratification worth to you? Or, to put it another way, how patient are you? What do you value more, your time or your money? If you're not a heavy surfer, maybe you can tolerate a slower speed in exchange for significant cost savings. But if you pay your bills online, use live chat, or download large files, what you'll be saving with a slower connection, you'll be losing in the hair you pull out of your head waiting for a page to load. One piece of information you'll want to check out is whether your geographical distance from the internet service provider's nearest Network Operating Center (NOC) will affect the speed of your connection. You can rule out a number of ISPs for geographical inconvenience alone.
Features
How many email accounts are included? How much storage space? Does the ISP software offer spam detectors? Parental controls? Virus protection? Do you get some amount of free web-hosting (and FTP services for managing your website)? Does the ISP offer web-based email so that you can check your email from any computer, anywhere? Whether it's a dialup connection or not, are multiple, local dialup numbers available, in case of emergency? Is a modem included with the service or do you have to buy one? Once you get a clear picture of your needs and desires (as well as your limitations) in these areas, you will be ready to research individual companies and compare their services. If faced with more than one company that seems to fit the bill, look for special promotions and customer testimonials (or forum postings) to help make that final decision.
See also: What is an ISP?
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