Print
Discuss
Send to friend
RSS feedsIf you think about it, the Internet is one of the strangest successn. What do you get when you join an ISP and is it worth paying for it? stories of the 1990s. After all, how many other examples of sophisticated military technology falling into widespread civilian use can you think of?
Yet that's exactly what's happened to the Internet, and this 1960s US Defense Department project has long since become a part of almost every aspect of popular culture. So, you've flipped through the magazine articles, read the books, seen the films, watched the TV programmes, played with the cuddly toy and have decided that you have no choice - you have to be online.
Now what?
Getting on the Internet and going online needs three things - a computer, a modem and an account with an Internet service provider, or ISP. If you're reading this feature, you probably already have the first two items and what you really need is advice on choosing the last one.
Picking an ISP has never been a particularly straightforward task, not least because there are so many to choose from. There are dozens of them out there, from small outfits that serve a local area to multinational corporations with millions of users. A good starting point is an ISP that offers the features you want, whether it's unlimited e-mail addresses or bags of personal Web space.
There also used to be a cost consideration: namely, finding an ISP whose pricing package didn't make you wince too much when your monthly bank statement arrived. Today, however, the situation is a little different.
As you may be aware, some ISPs have taken the remarkable step of abolishing their charges completely. For precisely £0, you can spend as long as you want online and send as many e-mails as you like, safe in the knowledge that someone else is paying for it. But surely these free ISPs aren't as good as the ones that charge? Well if you really want to know, read on.
How to choose an ISP
Every ISP provides three basic services - an Internet connection, an e-mail address and telephone-based technical support. Take a look at the tables at the end of this feature and you'll see that many ISPs also provide much, much more. But what does it all mean?
Access to the Internet
Just having a PC with a modem isn't enough to get you online - you also need access to a POP. A POP is a Point of Presence - an access point for the Internet. When you open an ISP account, you're given a username, a password and a POP telephone number. When your computer calls this number using a modem, it uses your username and password to connect you to the POP and, consequently, the Internet.
When you're using the Internet, your computer is making a phone call and you're charged for this just as if you were making a regular voice call. Thankfully, all the ISPs here provide a POP telephone number that's charged at the local call rate for your telephone company, even if the POP itself is at the other side of the country. Since it's a call like any other, you can also make savings with the various call saver options phone companies provide.
If your telephone company is Cable & Wireless, you'll benefit from lower call charges than with British Telecom, even if you don't subscribe to the Cable & Wireless Internet service. Interestingly, ClaraNET's ClaraCall service also offers lower call charges for its members (see the comparison of call rates below).
E-mail (literally 'electronic mail') is the biggest thing in communication since the invention of the Wireless Telegraph. Essentially, it provides a way for two people to send information to each other, regardless of where they are, all for the cost of a local phone call. E-mail isn't real-time communication and messages can take a couple of minutes to arrive at their destination but if you can store it as a file on a PC, you can send it as an e-mail.
When you open an ISP account you get an e-mail address, and this is the address other people use to send messages to you. Some ISPs provide just one address, others provide five - typically of the form Your_Name@ISPname.com (or .co.uk). For example, an MSN user's address might be John_Smith@msn.com.
If five e-mail addresses are not enough for you, then some ISPs provide an unlimited number of e-mail addresses, typically of the form Someone@Your_Name.ISPname.co.uk. If you have a large family or want to get your business online, this can be invaluable.
Unlike normal mail, e-mail isn't delivered to you directly. Instead, it's stored on your ISP's e-mail server until you collect it. If an ISP provides a POP3 e-mail server, you have the flexibility of being able to use any POP3 e-mail application for e-mail, such as Microsoft Outlook Express. If not, you're tied to using the software provided by the ISP. POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol 3, and should not to be confused with the acronym for Point of Presence.
AOL uses its own system and you have to use the AOL software for your e-mail needs. AOL 4.0i - the latest version of the software - is a big improvement over earlier releases but while it has nifty features for sending mail to other AOL members, it still lacks such basics as a decent address book and customisable filters for getting rid of junk mail - something that AOL suffers terribly from.
AOL and, to a lesser extent, CompuServe and MSN are services that span the globe. Big deal, you may say but this means you can access your account from anywhere in the world, providing you can get to a PC that has Internet access and the appropriate software. Handy, if you do a lot of travelling.
With a POP3 system, you need to call your ISP's POP to retrieve your e-mail. If you're in say, New York, this can be rather costly. Some ISPs (and AOL too, incidentally) also offer Web-based e-mail. The benefit, as with AOL, is that you can manage your e-mail using any PC with Internet access and a Web browser.
Technical support
At some time or another in your online adventuring, you're going to get stuck. It could be something as simple as a problem connecting to your POP or as tricky as finding out whether your PC's TCP/IP settings need a Primary DNS Server name ... In other words, you need technical support.
All ISPs provide telephone technical support - some for free, some for a charge. Generally, if you pay for your Internet access, you'll get free telephone support and if you plan to be online out of office hours, look for technical support times to suit. If you plan some weekend online time, Pipex Dial may not be ideal - its helpline is closed on Sundays.
FreeServe and TescoNet charge 50p a minute for technical support and if you have a complex problem, this can work out to be very expensive.
Thankfully, comprehensive online technical support is also common with ISPs but of course this won't be much help if you can't get online in the first place.
Newsgroups
Newsgroups (often referred to as 'Usenet') are a hangover from the early days of the Internet but they are still hugely popular. A Newsgroup is a text-based discussion and there are some 20,000 topic-based groups in existence, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. You read and contribute to a Newsgroup with a Newsgroup reader and ISPs with POP3 access let you use a whole range of them. With AOL, you're tied to its own reader and this is primitive, to say the least.
Personal Web space
The great thing about the Internet is that anyone can be a part of it.
Most ISPs provide you with some space on the Internet of your own to use as you see fit, though some place restrictions on using the space for business. Using software supplied by the ISP or an application like Microsoft FrontPage or another Web design package, you can then create your own site for the world to see.
The amount of Web space you get varies from ISP to ISP, ranging from none (in the case of BT ClickFree, Cable & Wireless Lite and MSN) to a whopping 50Mb (Global Internet), but 10Mb is more than enough for most purposes.
Speed
Everything that you do on the Internet you do with a modem. The faster your modem is, the faster you can download Web pages and deal with e-mail (although several other factors can influence this too).
All the ISPs here support 56Kbits/s modems - currently the fastest you can buy. Most support the latest V.90 standard but some are still working with the earlier K56flex and x2, and are in the process of upgrading. You can use slower modems, of course, but you'll get correspondingly slower Internet access.
Many of the ISPs also support an ISDN connection - something some homes now have thanks to BT's Home Highway service. You'll need an ISDN terminal adaptor for your PC rather than a modem, but a single ISDN connection works at 64Kbits/s. If the ISP supports dual connections, you can work at a blistering 128Kbits/s, but bear in mind you'll be paying for two simultaneous phone calls too.
LOCAL CALL RATES*
RATE CLARACALL BT CABLE
& WIRELESS
Peak 2.8p 3.95p 3.9p
Cheap 0.9p 1.49p 1.38p
Weekend 0.6p 1p 1p
*Local call rates per minute.
ONLINE SERVICES
AOL, CompuServe, LineOne and MSN are more than just ISPs, they're online services. As well as access to the Internet, an online service also provides its own content that's available only to members.
You could argue that an online service doesn't provide anything that can't be found elsewhere on the Internet and, in fact, you'd be right.
The difference is that an online service makes some effort to organise its contents in a logical way (unlike the Internet) and so information is usually easy to find and use. Online services also vet their information, which means there's less chance of stumbling across something that might offend.
Of them all, AOL is best of the online services - it has bags of content, is attractively presented, easy to use and has a built-in parental control system that's second to none.
FREE LUNCH ANYONE?
Something for nothing? There has to be a catch, right? Well if its free Internet access from the likes of Dixons FreeServe and Tesco TescoNet then as far as we can tell, there isn't, but there are some points to bear in mind.
First, a free ISP is bound to attract lots of users and indeed, FreeServe has already topped the million mark just a few months after its launch.
A POP has a limited capacity and if everyone tries to call it at once, there are going to be some engaged tones. So far, this hasn't been a major problem with the free providers, indicating that they're doing their best to provide a competitive service.
Second, to get free Internet access, you need a telephone line with CLID activated. CLID (Caller Line Identification) lets the ISP know who's using the service and if anyone abuses it (by sending junk mail, for instance), they can find out who it is and take appropriate measures. CLID is a feature of the new digital telephone exchanges now installed in almost all parts of the country. Not all parts, however, and if you don't have or don't want CLID on your telephone, you'll have less choice in the free ISP market.
Here's a tricky one - how can something be a Best Buy if you don't have to pay for it? Yet this is the case with the truly free ISPs - CallNet, FreeServe, BT ClickFree, and TescoNet.
These seem to offer excellent value for money, since they provide an identical service to regular ISPs and you would be foolish to disregard any of them. Whether or not they're equipped to cope with the influx of users they're sure to attract remains to be seen, but for the moment at least, no-one seems to be complaining.
So which of the free ISPs is the best? Well, it's down to CallNet and FreeServe - TescoNet narrowly misses out because of its meagre five e-mail addresses. CallNet offers free technical support and doesn't require members to have CLID active, which means anyone can use the service. However, our Best Buy award goes to FreeServe.
FreeServe is part of the huge Dixons Group, so there's no doubt that it means business. The phone network supporting it is provided by Energis - a major player in the telecommunications industry. You may have to pay for technical help but if you can get online, there are extensive help documents that cover almost every aspect of the service.
Since it's a little unfair to compare free services with ones that charge, we're going to take the unusual step of awarding a second Best Buy, to ClaraNet. At £8.99 a month, its ClaraCall service is a cheap one that compares favourably with the rest in terms of features. But better still, it provides discounted phone calls - just 0.6p a minute at weekends.
Again, an academic choice for Recommended ISPs. CallNet and TescoNet should be looked at for other free services. Global Internet deserves a mention, not least for its huge amount of personal Web space, but we predict that all regular ISPs will be reassessing their charges in the light of the free services, which is no bad thing for consumers.
All Laptops & Portables
del.icio.us
Digg this
reddit!
