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Advanced
How To Guide
Choosing
an ISP and a Telecommunication Method
Introduction
In the early days of the web, an Internet Service Provider
(ISP) provided you with access to the Internet and an
email account so you could communicate with other Internet users. Just as the use of the web has become more sophisticated
there are now a range of service providers that provide
differing services to businesses going online.
The purpose of this briefing paper is to outline as
clearly as possible the various services that are offered
by Irish Internet Service Providers. Armed with this
information you should be able to ask the relevant questions
to select the most suitable service provider for your
needs.
Connectivity
The most basic service provided by an ISP is Internet connectivity. This involves your ISP connecting your
PC or network to the public Internet so that you can
surf the web, send and receive email, transfer files,
using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and take part in
newsgroups and chat rooms.
Dial-up
Dial-up accounts are so-called because they involve
using the telephone network to dial-up your ISP and
connect to the Internet . Depending on the modem you
use the highest speed available with a dial-up connection
is 56Kbits/sec. The majority of new PCs ship with a
56Kbits/sec modem but older PCs may have a 33.6Kbits/sec
or even a 28.8Kbits/sec modem. A 56Kbits/sec connection
is fine for email and web use as long as you are not
sending or receiving large data files such as graphics.
However, due to the technical limitations of the public
telephone network the fastest connection speeds from
a 56Kbits/sec modem are around 50Kbits/sec and may even
fall as low as 33.6Kbits/sec from time to time.
In Ireland currently there are two main types of dial-up
accounts; subscription based services and subscription
free accounts, which are sometimes called free services.
A subscription account involves paying a monthly or
yearly fee to your ISP. For this you will receive at
least one email address (some ISPs may provide more),
and access to your ISP via an Internet access telephone
number [e.g. an 1891 telephone number]. The only other
bill you will have to pay is the price of the call when
you are connected to the Internet .
In contrast with a free account you don't pay any money
directly to the ISP. You connect to a phone number in
your local call area and are only charged for this local
call. The ISP then gets a split of the revenue from
your phone service provider.
For a number of reasons businesses are better advised
to avail of a subscription based account. Calls to an
1891 number are cheaper during business hours than the
local call rates you will pay with a "free"
account. If you use the Internet for any significant
length of time each day you will soon recoup the costs
of your subscription. Also you should note that some
of the ISPs give their free customers email addresses
with the word free in them e.g. user@oceanfree.net or
user@gofree.indigo.ie. This may not be the kind of impression
you want to give customers and suppliers. In addition,
the level of support by an ISP to a subscription account
tends to be better than to a free account.
If you have a small local area network (LAN) it is possible
to connect all users on the network using a dial-up
connection. While this will be fine for providing email
for different users in the company, web access will
be slow. The modem can be configured to dial-up at pre-set
intervals to automatically collect email and deliver
it to the relevant user on the network. If you opt for
a solution such as this, check with your ISP to see
if there is a maximum number of email accounts you can
have, as this could possibly restrict your use of email
as the company grows. If required, you should be easily
able to upgrade so that your LAN connects using ISDN,
DSL, or a dedicated leased line.
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