Choosing an Internet Service Provider
As the Internet becomes more popular, both in e-commerce and personal computer use, the need for Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) grows. With so many ISP’s now in operation, the choices for service are vast and the process of finding the right provider for your needs has become much more involved than when the Internet first became accessible to the public.
The first step in choosing an ISP is to know what you need. Will you be using the Internet for business or personal use? What type of work will you be doing on the Internet? Will you be connecting more than one computer (i.e. connecting a network)?
What modem speed do you have? Once you have determined your needs, it will be
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All of these are important questions to ask about the perspective ISP. An ISP with only two or three telephone lines may not be as reliable a connection as one with five or six. The lesser amount of telephone lines could result in busy signals that are more frequent. Though most cities have local ISP’s, some rural communities face the challenge of finding local dial-up numbers. For these people, this could play a large role in the decision making process. For business travelers, it may be important to note if their ISP is accessible from another city, and if they have an out of area 800 service.
3. Services – What kind of additional services does the ISP provide? For the average user, most basic connections include just the connection, and one email account. In non-commercial sites, it is common to receive web site space on the server with a basic connection. There are many other services offered by some ISP’s that can be considered when choosing a provider.. Here are some of the more common services that can be found:
· Additional email accounts.
· Email forwarding.
· Commercial web space.
· Web site design services.
· Email and web browser software.
· Internet classes.
4. Cost – Does the ISP offer a variety of service plans? What are your billing options? To some, the most important aspect when making the decision to use an ISP. It is important to remember that sometimes a lower cost can result in a lower
New technologies offer services and products that otherwise would be too difficult, costly, or time-consuming and the Internet allows traditional competitors to introduce new products and services and lure customers away. It helps a lot in cost saving.
Download speed – the amount of data the user can download per second and is capped by their ISP. The slower the download speed for the user the slower the user can download the webpages and assets to view the website so the company will have to have to take their customers download speeds into account to decide what size of files is appropriate for their audience to access their website as quickly as possible.
The future of the telecommunication industry is an exciting future. No longer can these companies depend on telephone service plans to maintain profit. Each company needs to find other avenues, packages and services that can be sold to existing customers while attracting new customers. The companies
Your cousin Cathy runs a part-time business out of her apartment. She buys and sells collectibles such as antique prints, baseball cards, and cartoon cells and has recently discovered the Web with its many auction sites. She has begun buying and selling on the Web by bidding on collectibles at lesser-known sites and selling them at a profit at more well-known sites. She downloads and uploads lots of graphics (pictures of the items she’s buying and selling). She is getting frustrated with the slow Internet access she has with her 56-Kbps dial-up modem and asks you for advice. DSL is available at a cost of $60 per month for 1.5 Mbps down and 384 Kbps up. Cable modem service is available for a cost of $50
2. Which of the following are services that telcos have offered as WAN services over the years?
1. Choice for providers - Choose a primary provider from the panel of available providers
Currently I have Comcast the question is will I keep them after my research is done? Comcast is known for their reliability as it relates to continuous service during weather changes such as rain, high winds, and storms. Comcast is always offering deals to new customers to sign up for their services. They offer cable TV, internet, voice, and home security system.
This option allows the business to enjoy free calls and voicemails sent by the internet. Therefore it needs a fast and reliable internet connection.
Comcast practices the ‘Best-cost provider strategy’ in a business model that promotes convince for their customers by offering integrated services all on one bill. “Best-cost provider strategies are a hybrid of low-cost provider and differentiation strategies that aim at satisfying buyer expectations on key quality/features/performance/service attributes and beating customer expectations on price” (Gamble et. All) The elements in the best-cost provider strategy include: bundles with internet, cable and telephone services at varying internet speed, cable channels and levels of telephone service; different cable packages with different channels and promotional deals and
The best product or service if unknown to the consumer will never sell and will be unsuccessful. Many factors influence the choices made by a potential customer. Many companies other than Cox offer video, data and telephony services to consumers. Cox Communications must market itself and its products and services to gain the loyalty of subscribers. The selection of a provider for these services is an important decision that is influenced by many variables; the cost of service, the cost of installation, and customer service, to name a few. If the subscriber calls to start new service and is placed on hold for an extended period of time they are likely to hang up and call another provider, if the cost
Data/Broadband Offerings. As the communications industry continues to move toward Internet-based technologies that are capable of blending traditional wireline and wireless services, AT&T plans to offer services that take advantage of these new and more sophisticated technologies. In particular, the company intends to continue to focus on expanding its AT&T U-verse high-speed broadband and video offerings, while developing IP-based services that allow customers to unite their home or business wireline services with their wireless service. In addition, this company’s size and leverage ought to allow it to take advantage of a maturing telecommunications space via increased spectrum, capacity, and data services.
The telecommunications industry is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. The key success factors in this industry are hard to pin point, because they vary from having the right amount of money to having the right amount of customers. This industry is a very expensive industry to do research and development in. Besides the money required for R&D the companies in this business have to spend tremendous amount of capital on advertising and consumer awareness. The services provided by the different competitors in this industry are essentially the same but with very different reputations. AOL spends millions of dollars every year to send free trial C.D., in order to gain customer awareness. Which in turn shows the results as being very successful, making AOL the largest internet-service provider in the United States.
The business case presented focuses on insatiable demand amongst a growing population for a service built on dilapidated, poorly maintained infrastructure, against a backdrop of government deregulation in the telecoms sector. As of 1992, there were a mere 78k telephone lines for the 27m people living in 4.7m households (a population set to double over the coming 24 years), with users suffering success rates of just 25%. Demand was forecast to grow to 500k subscribers by 1996. The recent deregulation of the telecoms sector (via the break-up of TPTC into TPC and TTCL) and the formation of a regulator (TCC) had