Question: Does the ISP go down often? How long does it take to restore service?
Remark : Defiantly one of the first questions you will want to ask your ISP, but keep in mind a lot of ISPs buy their dialup access from middle-men and it might take longer for services to become operational again. When asking your ISP see if they deal directly with their dialup vendor or if they use a middle-man.

Question: Does the ISP have a backup system that guarantees service? Will the ISP accept large mail messages or are messages truncated at a certain length?
Remark: This is another great question to ask the ISP you are looking to choose. If their mail server crashes will your old email be restored.

Question: Do
es the ISP offer newsgroups?
Remark: Most ISPs do offer newsgroups either on their own or they outsource them from SuperNews, GigaNews and son on.

Question: What is the ISP’s connection to the Internet? Is there a lag when connecting?
Remark: A very good question you don't want your ISP to be connected to the Internet with a 128k ISDN line :)

Question: Does the ISP use multiple redundant connections to protect against connection failures? Does it channel all traffic through one pipe?
Remark: Redundancy is a definite must in the ISP industry, this is something you will want to ask.
We hope this information has helped you in your quest to find a new Internet Service Provider.


This Article is (C) The ISP Report.