Is choosing an Internet Service Provider an important decision? It is to the service providers all vying for your business. That is why they come up with special package deals and business or personal packages ideally suited to accommodate your needs. That is why they spend so much money on advertising and marketing, to try and attract you to their side. The decision is of the utmost importance to them indeed.
But is it important to you? It is if you like to shop around and get value for your money or if you have specific needs and are looking for a specific package. It is if you want to take advantage of a specific deal or special offer from a specific provider. It is if you have had previous good or bad experiences with providers or have heard of people who have had good or bad experiences with specific providers. It is if quality of service is important to you because all things being equal in the world of business and customer service, not all companies offer their customers service of the same high quality.
What do you look out for? That depends on your requirements and whether you have business or personal needs. Your first concern more than likely will be the connection, will it be reliable and resilient and will the broadband be clean and fast? There is very little worse than a dodgy connection that hangs up on you every ten to fifteen minutes out of temperamental spite or that shuts down if you open up more than three pages at a time or that works at a snail’s pace. In fact snails would probably make it across your office floor and be half way back before you’ve managed to open a page.
Second, perhaps, is security. Do they offer protection from spyware, spam, viruses and hackers? There is a company that offers 100% protection against known and unknown viruses, spam and spyware. Now that is confidence. Who wouldn’t want that kind of guarantee backing them up?
The ability to communicate effectively and manage your email might be another concern. Most service providers either provide an email management system or work in conjunction with an already existing system. A lot of service providers work in conjunction with Microsoft Outlook. Outlook can be configured and personalised to reflect your business and personal needs. Outlook can also be set up for intranet for inter-office communication as well as Internet so that you can communicate globally.
If you’re a business you might be concerned about an extension to the office for your employees to enable them to work from home or while they’re traveling or visiting clients or whatever the case maybe, in order to increase mobility. You would like that connection to be as secure and reliable as the regular office connection. They should be able to connect up anytime and anywhere with confidence.
Even though you have to pay for a good service provider, the advantages of having one should pay for themselves. They include a reduction in costs in support overheads and removing problems involved with running an in-house solution. The costs themselves should be in the form of an all inclusive fixed monthly fee so that you know exactly what you are paying for every month and the payment can be easily arranged e.g. debit order.
So to answer the question we asked right at the beginning, “Is choosing an Internet Service Provider an important decision?”: Yes it is. It is very important if you run a business or have very specific personal needs. There are more than likely package deals out there that will seem tailor made for you if you just shop around a little and do a little research. Many people however, go with the flashiest adverts because they remember them, or the ones that advertised the latest sale. People like that are a marketers dream because they are the most easily influenced. Not too sure how the service providers feel about that though.
Sandra wrote this article for the online marketers Star Internet Service Provider one of the leading Internet Service Providers in the UK
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