ISPs

Choosing an ISP: A guide to selecting a dial-up Internet service provider

Whether you are just at the stage of trying to decide how to get connected to the Internet, or you are a long-time user evaluating whether another company's service might be better suited to your needs, the table that accompanies this article should address most of your questions. Frankly, at a maximum monthly charge of about $20, we're inclined to feel that the big issue is not the price of the service, but the quality and the variety of what is offered.

Let's first look at some of the issues that may influence your decision when choosing a dial-up Internet service provider (ISP).

The following question should help guide you in your choices: Do you plan to use the Internet from areas other than your home town?

If you answer "Yes," you should choose a national ISP. If you have - or think you might use - a portable computer when you travel, a national ISP will allow you to connect, via a local phone call, to its network, which in turn allows you access to the Internet.

Thus, you can establish an Internet connection without paying long-distance charges. (Even if you don't own a portable computer, be aware that a growing number of hotels have computer and fax machine rentals available through their business offices).

Commercial online services and national ISPs with Internet access

There are numerous national ISPs, including (but not limited to) CompuServe, IBM's Advantis network, the Microsoft Network (MSN), Prodigy, America Online (AOL), Internet Portal, and more.

CompuServe, AOL, and MSN also provide many subscription-based news and information-related services - and are probably better-known for these services than for their more recent role as ISPs. However, a discussion of these commercial offerings is outside the scope of this article.

Here at PC Buyer's Guide, we've tested a number of service providers and have found that service quality ranges from flawless to abysmal. Subscribe to a service your friends or coworkers use and recommend. We have had good results with Istar, Internet Direct and other Canadian services using the iPass roaming service, and have also had success with major providers Sympatico, CompuServe and AOL. High-speed cable modem services such as @Home are less consistent: in the West, most people seem to be happy; but in the Toronto area, service quality seemingly varies widely. Generally, most providers that have been in business longer than three years have worked out the bugs and are now offering reliable services.

National providers have numbers in most Canadian and American cities (and, in the case of CompuServe and Advantis, in many other cities around the world). A relative newcomer, iStar has become a national service by purchasing existing ISPs in various cities in Canada. We will likely see other national services emerge this year from an amalgamation of local service providers.

AOL used to be quite expensive for Canadians because of a usage surcharge applied to calls from outside the U.S. However, as of February, 1999, the company began providing local-call service in 18 Canadian cities and also offers 800 numbers (cost is US$0.20 per minute) for Canadians living outside these 18 urban centres. The basic rate is about the same as for CompuServe: US$9.95 per month for five hours with additional time charged at US$2.95 per hour.

Generally, national providers have more than one pricing plan: a basic plan where you pay a minimal monthly fee, and get a small number of hours of network and Internet use as part of the basic fee, with additional access billed by the hour, or a "heavy user" plan, which typically costs more per year, but provides more hours of access without incurring the dreaded hourly fee.

Some services exact extra charges for prime-time usage; and most - if not all - of the big-name services provide a "connection kit" disk. If you've browsed computer magazine racks at any time over the last few years, you've undoubtedly seen poly-bagged issues with disks for CompuServe, AOL, CompuServe, or Prodigy inside.

CompuServe, Advantis and MSN have, in our view, the best Internet services of the major providers. CompuServe, for example, provides a so-called Web Wizard that makes it easy for its members to create and upload web pages to its site (certain limitations apply).

Although a CompuServe spokesperson said the company planned to roll out a new service in March 1996 that allows e-mail to be addressed to an "alias" (e.g., a name or company name) to a CIS user ID, for more than a year after that date, CompuServe users were still identified via an archaic numerical address. If, for example, you wanted to e-mail a hypothetical user on MSN, you could e-mail somebody@msn.com whereas you would have to e-mail this mystery person's CompuServe account at a numbered account; e.g., 102701.3155@compuserve.com. Thus, if you are planning to put your e-mail address(es) on your business card, the name your account is registered under is worth considering carefully.

Advantis has an especially nice feature: the option to share an account with up to six users, each with their own e-mail and password. As you might expect from an IBM-owned service, OS/2 and Windows users are well supported. Setting up the dialing script under Windows 9x is not exactly intuitive under Advantis, but the company will fax you a sheet detailing the procedure upon request.

MSN is probably the easiest to connect to for Windows 9x users, and as of January, 1999 the company began offering unlimited access for the first 30 days and fairly low rates thereafter, especially if you choose the yearly subscription plan. The service is currently only available for Windows users; the latest beta release, dubbed MSN 3.0, adds instant messaging features and free long-distance telephone access as well.

Macintosh and Windows 3.1 users in Canada who are looking for a national ISP are probably best served by CompuServe. CompuServe is fairly easy to configure for Internet access (ironically, the Mac is harder to configure than a PC), and once set up, you can use any Internet tool you wish - for example, we prefer the Netscape Web browser over the inferior one that CompuServe supplies in its Internet Launcher Kit. (The Spry browser was updated in late Feb.)

Accessing the Internet via MSN is similarly "open" (i.e., any TCP/IP program can be used), whereas the now-defunct Prodigy, GEnie and some other services forced you to use certain programs to browse the Web and/or otherwise limit your access to certain Internet functions.

Although, at a superficial level, Prodigy and GEnie provided access to the Internet, they did allow the use of some Internet tools (for example, you could not use your choice of Web browser on these systems); as a result, enough users found that they were not the best choice in the long run -- and the companies went under.

We have found that the most convenient and compatible ISPs are those that offer SL/IP and/or (preferably) PPP connections. These terms are typically associated with "full-access" Internet service. While you're at it, find out if the provider will allow you to post your own Web pages. Publishing documents on the World Wide Web is surprisingly easy and many people enjoy creating their own home page.

If your answer to the first question in this article was "No," i.e. you do not plan to compute while travelling, you can probably save some money by choosing a local ISP.

Some ISPs offer light and heavy user plans such as those mentioned above (i.e., a monthly fee provides several hours of Internet access; additional hours are charged at an hourly rate), but another approach is to offer a flat-rate service.

In other words, you pay $20 or so per month and then get theoretically unlimited access. We say "theoretically," because in practical terms, these services are usually so busy (and let's face it, if you had "unlimited" access, wouldn't you be inclined to connect more often?).

In fact, some people just stay connected all the time, clogging the company's dial-up lines so that other unfortunate users get endless busy signals when they call practically any time of the day or night.

As a result, some providers have begun to implement an automatic "kick-off" function that boots you off after 10 minutes or so of inactivity.

Our recommendation is to favor providers that have been in business for more than two years. Try calling their modem numbers before subscribing to see how busy they are. Internet providers should not mind giving out their phone numbers; after all, you can't sign onto the service without a password and user ID anyway.

Obviously, we suggest that you try phoning the numbers at the time of day or night you plan on typically using the system. Many "flat-rate" providers are incredibly busy in the evening; night-owls are the lucky ones in this case.

In our experience, smaller local providers tend to be "temporarily out of service" due to hardware or software glitches; this seems to be especially common with providers that have been in business for less than two years.

You might also find that smaller providers are poorly equipped to deal with technical support problems. Call their tech support or sales office (voice) line and ask if they have a "starter kit" that supports your operating system. If you care about these sort of things, you might want to find out whether the kit comes with a printed manual - many don't.

In our opinion, the worst way to get connected is to use a shrink-wrapped or book-and-a-disk "everything you need/just add your own Internet account" kit. These "generic" starter kits typically require that you enter complicated IP addresses, subnet mask values, domain names and other technical information (see the glossary for a bit of jargon relief!), or else they are pre-configured for American providers that don't offer services in Canada anyway.

In summary: National providers usually cost you more; local providers usually have more busy signals and force you to do a bit more manual configuration.

A final consideration is the "family quotient." Some ISPs provide essentially unlimited access to every aspect of the Internet, including some decidedly inappropriate content for children.

Other providers, such as iStar, limit access to pornography-oriented parts of the Web until you supply them with proof you are over 18.

While we don't want to get into a discussion of whether there should be censorship on the Net, it is nice that some providers attempt to provide a service that is suitable for all members of the family. If this is important, be sure to ask whether your prospective ISP offers any method of limiting access to "cyberporn." Other advice: If you currently have a modem that is slower than 56 kbps, upgrade. A fast modem will be an investment that pays off every time you connect. The World Wide Web, with its graphics and multimedia elements, can make even a 28.8 modem seem slow sometimes; you won't regret having spent the $30 - 80 or so that a decent name-brand 56K modem (e.g., Supra, USR, etc.) costs. On the other hand, if your office is on a local area network (LAN), you may find that a modem on every desk isn't the best way for employees to access the Internet. Smart companies install a system (there are many varieties) that adds the Internet's TCP/IP protocol and a high-speed Internet connection to a company LAN; many local ISPs now offer high-speed access services such as ADSL (glossary time again!) as well as dial-up accounts. As well, cable TV companies now offer cable modem access in many metropolitan areas, at comparable prices.  Naturally, higher performance costs more. Expect to pay around $40 per month for high-speed internet access that's 50 to 150 times the speed of a modem.

In closing, it might be sage advice to recommend that you ask your Internet-using friends what services they use or have heard about, and what their comments are.

Hopefully, they will be able to steer you to a provider that will get you onto the Net and set to explore the nearly limitless variety of resources on the Internet.

ISDN

(Integrated Services Digital Network):

a fast method of connecting to a network such as the Internet. ISDN costs about $135 per month at the moment and can deliver around 12K of bandwidth per second; a 28.8 modem delivers only about 2K. There are, of course, many technical details we are omitting here about the subtleties of ISDN. Suffice it to say that you need a special ISDN interface for your computer and special wiring, which may or may not be available in your part of the country.

IP addresses:

A number such as 206.174.16.4 that identifies a machine on the Internet. This number can be configured to be dynamically assigned to your computer, or it can be pre-set. Typically, your ISP will provide you with a starter kit diskette that pre-configures these values or tells you how to input them.

Subnet mask:

A number such as 255.255.255.0 that is usually pre-configured as above. Hopefully, your ISP's pre-configured starter kit diskette will allow you to bypass the complexities of configuring IP addresses, subnet masks and domain names.

Domain name:

Usually pre-configured by your ISP, this is the name by which the ISP is identified. CompuServe's domain name, for example, is compuserve.com; MSN's domain name is msn.com. Companies have to register their domain name with an organization called InterNIC; most ISPs can help you register your own company name as a domain for a nominal fee. In Canada, the .CA Domain Registrar is www.cdnnet.ca (not internic.ca)

LAN (local area network):

The kind of connection that many offices use to link up two or more computers to share files or printers, etc. A LAN requires both a hardware component (e.g., an Ethernet card and appropriate cabling) and a network operating system (e.g., Novell Netware, Windows NT Server, LANtastic, etc.). LANs can be connected to the Internet, so each computer does not need its own modem; all the machines on the LAN can share one high-speed Internet connection.

PPP (point to point protocol):

A common method for establishing a dial-up connection to the Internet. Windows 9x, for example, uses PPP as its primary method of allowing TCP/IP dial-up connections.

SL/IP (serial line interface protocol):

More complex to configure than PPP, but similar in that it is a method of allowing TCP/IP communication over dial-up connections.

TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol):

The system by which packets of information are transmitted over the Internet. Windows 95, 98, NT and Windows 2000 come with built-in Internet connectivity software. Older computers running 16-bit Windows typically used an add-on program called a "WINSOCK" to add this TCP/IP capability; Macintosh computers running System 7.5 or newer come with a Control Panel called MacTCP that performs a similar function. OS/2 Warp. Linux, BeOS and other modern operating systems also come with built-in TCP/IP connectivity features and a full suite of Internet tools.

WINSOCK (Windows socket services):

A standardized way of adding TCP/IP functionality to a PC running any version of Windows. The 16-bit Shareware program Trumpet Winsock (included in many ISP's starter kits) is a popular choice under Windows 3.1; the CompuServe Internet Access Launcher comes with its own 16-bit Winsock. Windows 9x and NT have built-in 32-bit Winsock services.

Services offered by ISPs vary widely. Ask prospective ISPs whether they support the following, and if so, what conditions are attached.

1. Can you post your own Web Pages? Is there a charge? Do business-oriented pages cost extra?
2. Do you pay per megabyte to send or receive files or e-mail? How much?
3. Is there more than one subscriber plan? What are the details? (Keep in mind that almost everybody uses the Internet more than they think they will. An hour or two per day is not uncommon.)
4. Do you have to pay extra for any services? Which ones?
5. Are there any Internet services or functions that are not available?
6. Can you use any Web browser you choose?
7. How do you "unsubscribe?"
8. Is there a "starter kit" for the kind of computer (or operating system) you own? Does it come with a printed manual?One of the best lists of questions to ask a prospective Internet provider is at http://megasun.bch.umontreal.ca/~burkep/questions.html

Although, of course, having a list about how to choose an Internet access provider on the Internet is a bit of an oxymoron, it's worth getting a friend or business associate to print out the questions (kindly provided by Montreal-based Peter Burke Consulting) for you so that you will know the right questions to ask before you sign anything. Shop around! - G.B.

For more information on Canadian ISPs, see The List