08/28/99
By David A. Ranch


When rating the ISPs from their e-mail responses, I would do the 
following:

	- Create a text file and start ranking their replies.
	  Many might be automatic mailers which you will then
	  have to resend the original message to a personal
	  account or commonly, the replies will be too vague
	  since the 1st tier support people that respond to
	  e-mail like this usually don't have a clue.

	- From this long and pain-in-the-ass process, you will
	  get a sense of the ISP's responsiveness, abilities, etc

	- I personally use Value.net but I don't know if they
	  are in your area.  


Here is the e-mail I used to query ISPs:

--

Hello ISP,

I need to pick an ISP ASAP but I'd like to ask you a few questions 
before I join up with your services:


[For Dial-up] 

1.A  Do you offer unlimited time PPP connections and 
     how much would it cost a month?  Any setup charges?  
     :
     :

1.B  Does that get me a shell account?  WWW disk space (MB?)
     :
     :
     :

1.C  Do you support 56K modems?  If so, what standards
     do you support?  USR's X2, Rockwell's K56, v.90?
     :

1.D  Do you support Ml/PPP or EQL for simultaneous modem bonded connections?  
     Any additional cost?  If not offered yet, when do you plan on 
     supporting this feature?
     :
     :

---

[For ISDN] 

2.A. Do you support ISDN?  If so, what are the rate 
     increases for ISDN over a normal analog dial-up account?  
     Any setup charges?
     :
     :

2.B  Does that get me a shell account?  WWW disk space (MB?)
     :
     :

2.C  Is your ISDN service only 56K per B-channel or the full 64/128k?  
     :

2.D  To better match hardware here at home, what vendor do you use 
     for your ISDN server equipment? (Ascend, Livingston, USR, etc)
     :
     :

2.E  Do you support AO/DI ISDN connections (x.25 over the 
     D-channel?) Yes?  Can you give me some pricing?  No?  When do 
     you plan on implementing it if not available today?
     :
     :
 
2.F  Do you offer a flat-rate connection?  For Northern California,
     this is called Centrex.  Any additional fees?
     :

---

[For xDSL] 

3.A  What are your rates for your various DSL packages?  
     Any setup charges?  
     :
     :

3.B  What other CLECs offer your service?  For northern
     California, there is PacBell and Covad.  Do you have any preference
     of one vendor over another?
     :

3.C  Does that get me a shell account?  WWW disk space (MB?)  
     :
     :

3.D  Do you allow your endusers to run SERVERS such as WWW, FTP, etc?
     :

---

[For Cablemodems]

4.A  What are your rates for various Cablemodem packages (higher 
     performance, more mailboxes, etc)?  Any installation
     charges?
     :
     :

4.B  Do any of these plans get me a shell account?  How about WWW disk space 
    (MB?)  
     :

4.C  Do you allow your endusers to run SERVERS like WWW, FTP, etc?
     :

4.D  Do you limit upload bandwidth?  If so, what is that limit?
     Do other packages have better performance?
     :
     :

---


 5.  Do you provide service (have a POP) that is local in 
     [insert your city name] ([insert your home telephone number's 
     prefix here])
     :

 6.  How are you connected to the Internet?  Do you have redundany links? 
     What is the bandwidth of each of those link(s)?  Who is your NSP/NAP 
     (MCI, Sprint, InterNex, etc)?
     :
     :

 7.  For the POP that is local to me, what vendor do you use for the
     terminal server equipment?  

     (Dial-up: Livingston, Ascend, Cisco, Gandalf, etc.)
     (DSL: Redback, Cisco, etc.)
     (Cable: Alcatel, Motorola, Cisco, etc)
     :

 8.  What about IPs?  How much would it cost to get ONE dedicated
     IP address?  How about 3 IPs?  Any other packages?
     :
     :

 9.  With static IPs, how about DNS registration?  Will you release
     full DNS delegation to my IP(s) so both forward and reverse DNS
     is correct?  What's the cost?  Any setup fee?
     :


10.  Do you support multicast traffic (Mbone, etc)?  No, when do you 
     plan to implement it?
     :
     :

12.  Do you support UUCP and how much would it cost?
     :
  

Sorry about the long list of questions but I'm just doing my 
homework since I plan to utilize the features of my dial-up
connection to its fullest.

Thanks in advance!

--