Choosing an Internet Service Provider

An internet service provider (ISP) provides a connection to the internet.  For connections through ordinary telephone lines, your computer's modem dials an access number (a telephone number) for the ISP and the ISP then connects you to the internet for the duration of the telephone call.  For many people, one ISP will likely be as good as another, but in particular cases, some of the following considerations may be important in choosing an ISP. 

1) Limited vs. unlimited access - If you will only be using the internet for email, you may want to choose an ISP such as AOL or Mindspring that offers a limited number of hours per month.  For example, AOL offers a plan providing 3 hours a month for $4.95, with extra hours at $2.50/hour.  Since email can be read and written "offline" -- while you are not connected to the internet, my experience has been that 3 hours a month is plenty to sign on once or twice daily, send messages and download new mail. 

2) Proprietary content -- Information on the internet  is available to all.  A few ISPs, in particular AOL, provide content that is only available to their members.  

3) Speed of connection - Connection to the internet from people's homes is normally through ordinary telephone lines.  Perhaps a million or so people in the US connect to the internet from home over faster connections, either special telephone lines (DSL) or cable television lines.  These faster connections cost at least $40-$60/month, whereas connection over ordinary telephone lines is no more than $22/month, and often less.

4) National vs. regional ISPs - A national ISP will have a nationwide subscriber base and it will provide sufficient access numbers so that calls to the access number are local calls virtually anywhere in the country.  Depending on the individual's calling plan with their local telephone company, and the access numbers available in that area, there may be local toll charges imposed by the telephone company for the call.  Local and regional ISPs, on the other hand, do not have such a nationwide base of subscribers.  Local and regional ISPs may offer capabilities for their subscribers to access the internet from other parts of the country for limited use for no extra charge.

Examples of national ISPs are AOL, Compuserve, Dellnet, Earthlink, Gateway, MSN, Mindspring, Prodigy, Sprintmail.com, Tidalwave, and Worldnet.att.net. Examples of regional ISPs are Bellatlantic and Erols.

5) Simplicity of setup - AOL is easier to setup than many other services.

6) Ability to use various e-mail programs - With AOL you must use their proprietary email program, which although simple to use, has more limited capabilities than standard email programs such as Eudora or Eudora Light, Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, and Netscape Messenger.  With other ISPs, you can use a variety of email programs.  However, there is now a program you can download for $20 from www.enetbot.com that allows you to use these other email programs to read and send AOL mail.

7) Multiple email addresses - AOL allows a user to have up to 7 email addresses for each account.  Erols allows a user to add a second email address.  Multiple addresses are useful for families and for those who want additional accounts either for purposes of anonymity or for specific uses.

8) Multiple screennames - AOl's provision for up to 7 screennames not only permits multiple email addresses, but allows families to set viewing prviileges on the Internet separately for each account.  Similarly, since AOL allows on to complete a profile for each screenname, multiple screennames permits control over disclosure of information about oneself in activities other than email -- e.g., chat.

9) Spam - Spam is unsolicited email.  AOL accounts probably receive more spam email than other accounts.  This occurs for  two reasons.  First, since AOL is by far the largest ISP, one would expect spammers to devote more energy to programs that either gather or guess AOL addresses that other addresses, since the potential rewards are greater.  Second, the AOL profiles referred to above probably make it easier to gather AOL addresses than other email addresses.  The volume of spam received in my AOL account now is considerably less than it was a year or two ago, so AOL's efforts to address this problem appear to be working.  For the spam that does get through, most can be identified by simply reading the subject line and thus one can simply delete the message without opening and reading the message.

10) Service - Local, and to a lesser extent, regional ISPs are perceived as able to offer greater and more personalized customer service than national ISPs.

11) Parental control - As noted above, AOL provides proprietary content and the capability to restrict access to certain sites on the internet.  There are programs one can use with other internet service providers which also restrict access. 

12) Ads - Some services (e.g. Juno, Netzero, KTLA) provide internet service for free.  Although I haven't used any of these, I would expect that all of them would subject you to viewing ads that you would not see with a padi service.

Pricing

The standard monthly charge for AOL and some other national ISPs is $20-22 for unlimited use.  As noted above, some ISPs offer reduced rates for limited use.  For example, AOL charges $4.95/month for 3 hours use, and $2.50/hour for additional use.  Thus if one were to use AOL less than about 10 hours per month, the limited plan would be less expensive.  One can sometimes signup for some national ISPs at lower prices through specials.

The rate for Erols (Starpower) is lower than the normal rate for national ISPs -- $15.95 per month or $14.95/month with a year's commitment.  They offer lower rates if one gets local and long distance service through them as well.

A number of computer retailers such as Best Buy and CompUSA offer rebates of $400 off the purchase of a new computer system if one prepays for 3 years of service from a particular national ISP at a rate of $21.95/month.  The actual savings may be less than $400 for two reasons:

• One is prepaying for the service as opposed to paying for it monthly
• One can often get the same service for somewhat less than $21.95.  
• The costs of internet access are generally projected to go down in the future, and the 3 year rebate plans lock you into the current price.  However, although these predictions have been made for some time, prices have not yet declined.   

Revised: September 22, 2000, comments to William Pegram, wpegram@stanfordalumni.org