ISP Recommendation for light business use

A customer currently uses Wanadoo (maybe on a home tariff) and is looking
to change to an ISP that provides a more reliable and flexible service.

What ISPs would people recommend? A quick comparison on adslguide of ISPs
such as Nildram, Pipex and Zen shows that Zen seems to have high customer
satisfaction ratings

The customer is a light user with two or three PCs which do web browsing and
email, with occasional downloads of Windows/Norton upgrades: a PAYG tariff
with up to maybe 5 GB/month may be sufficient. In this situation, is a
business tariff warranted or will a home tariff suffice?

The requirements are:

- reliable connection and web/email access, with minimum of downtime and
quick resolution of problems - this is probably the most important factor

- competent English call centre for resolving problems

- ability to raise and track support calls by web interface as well as by
phone

- Freephone dial-up access as a backup in case of broadband failure

- good spam filtering

- allows access to a non-ISP POP server (which the customer already has
accounts on) and either:
* allows access to its SMTP server from another ISP (assuming SMTP
authentication is used)
or
* allows access from its connection to a non-ISP SMTP server (assuming
SMTP authentication is used)

(the object in either case is to allow the customer's laptop to be set up
with a single Outlook Express account which can send/receive both from the
ISP at work and from his ISP [NTL] at home; Wanadoo don't allow access to
"foreign" SMTP servers from their own connection and don't allow access to
their own SMTP server from a "foreign" connection - Catch22!)

- webmail access for email away from home/office

- ISP's own POP server and ISP's own webspace are not needed

- high speed is probably not essential: 8 Mbps would be nice but 2 Mbps is
probably sufficient

Martin Underwood wrote:

> What ISPs would people recommend? A quick comparison on adslguide of ISPs
> such as Nildram, Pipex and Zen shows that Zen seems to have high customer
> satisfaction ratings
>

http://www.zenadsl.co.uk/S_Business.aspx?page=518
http://www.ukfsn.org/adsl.html

Not sure about all the email issues, ukfsn has authenticated SMTP
server.

You don't need a business account. Backup tends to be 0845 but ukfsn
sell 080x flat rate dialup too https://www.enta.net/emb/products.php

Phil

On 16 Sep 2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:

>- Freephone dial-up access as a backup in case of broadband failure

when you find one, do, please, let us all know its name :-)

NoNeedToKnow wrote in
(E-Mail Removed):

> On 16 Sep 2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:
>
>> - Freephone dial-up access as a backup in case of broadband failure
>
> when you find one, do, please, let us all know its name :-)

Well I think PlusNet have one as a backup during broadband outages. It's
probably only enabled for a given customer if he's reported a problem.

I've never tried using it, because my PlusNet broadband connection has
always been fine (apart from when they were affected by a power cut the
other month): it's their email and web servers which are less than reliable
and prevent me recommending PN at the moment.

In article <450bff67$0$537$(E-Mail Removed)>,
Martin Underwood <a@b> wrote:
>A customer currently uses Wanadoo (maybe on a home tariff) and is looking
>to change to an ISP that provides a more reliable and flexible service.
>
>What ISPs would people recommend? A quick comparison on adslguide of ISPs
>such as Nildram, Pipex and Zen shows that Zen seems to have high customer
>satisfaction ratings

I recently was toying with the idea of dumping Zen for an ISP with a
higher download limit under MAX - I was on standard 2Mbps ADSL at the
time. Have to say I had no problems with Zen until then - they did a
good job on the initial installation and chased up BT when there was a
BT problem at the exchange. I was a little irritated by their MAX caps
which is why I thought I could get a better deal elsewhere.

But I thought I'd do the upgrade first through Zen then make the change...
So I went through their web site to try to find a simple "push here to
upgrade" button and failed. An email to support was answered reasonably
quickly with advice that I had to go through the whole registration
process again. So I got in a bit of a strop and emailled them back saying
that if I had to enter my address, etc. details again, I might as well
do it with someone else...

15 miuntes later they called me and invited me to go throug the upgrade
process there and then on the phone, so I decided to do it. They also
pointed out that my usage patterns were such that even with the cap on
MAX I could still drop down a tarrif and save a tenner a month, so I
went with it.

This was on a Thursday afternoon. My line was upgraded to MAX by 8am
the next day.

So I'm still with Zen and very happy with them, and watching my usage
which is actually well below the limit I'm on, so happy for the time
being.

>The customer is a light user with two or three PCs which do web browsing and
>email, with occasional downloads of Windows/Norton upgrades: a PAYG tariff
>with up to maybe 5 GB/month may be sufficient. In this situation, is a
>business tariff warranted or will a home tariff suffice?
>
>The requirements are:
>
>- reliable connection and web/email access, with minimum of downtime and
>quick resolution of problems - this is probably the most important factor
>
>- competent English call centre for resolving problems
>
>- ability to raise and track support calls by web interface as well as by
>phone

I'd say that you get all this with Zen

>- Freephone dial-up access as a backup in case of broadband failure

As someone else poitned out, if you find this, let us know

>- good spam filtering
>
>- allows access to a non-ISP POP server (which the customer already has
>accounts on) and either:
> * allows access to its SMTP server from another ISP (assuming SMTP
>authentication is used)
> or
> * allows access from its connection to a non-ISP SMTP server (assuming
>SMTP authentication is used)
>
> (the object in either case is to allow the customer's laptop to be set up
>with a single Outlook Express account which can send/receive both from the
>ISP at work and from his ISP [NTL] at home; Wanadoo don't allow access to
>"foreign" SMTP servers from their own connection and don't allow access to
>their own SMTP server from a "foreign" connection - Catch22!)

What I would suggest is de-couple your email (and web space) provider
from your connectivity provider. Register a domain for yourself (or client)
and find some independant hosting that supports STMP AUTH. There are many.
That way, if you ever have to change office ISPs for whatever reason,
then it won't affect your email or web space. It's worth paying for this
IMO, and upto about a tenner a month wouldn't be out of order, although
there are many places who'll do a good service for £30 a year.

>- high speed is probably not essential: 8 Mbps would be nice but 2 Mbps is
>probably sufficient

All depends on line quality and distance from exchange...

Gordon

On 16 Sep 2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:

> It's probably only enabled for a given customer if he's reported a problem.

Correct, and only enabled by them when they deal with a ticket, which makes
one wonder how one gets to find out (OK, let's give some credit, they might
send an SMS to let the user know!). If internet access is really important
to a firm, then a second ISP connection is good insurance - the higher the
need, the greater the importance, and if a week of dial-up was to cost 50
pounds then the convenience of not having to use dial-up, but having a
second ADSL connection would be for what it is - a great backup. Having
to use dial-up for hours also means one goes back to engaged number for
anyone dialling the firm, if they only have one line, so that too is plus
when having a second line.

> ... it's their email and web servers which are less than reliable and prevent
> me recommending PN at the moment.

It depends on the actual needs, and cost of a business account but there
are lots of options for the hosting service to give webspace and e-mail. I
have used QiQ (there's been a link on www.net4now.com which is run by
the same people as do the hosting QiQ) for some time and at under 20
pounds a year, with generous limits (compared with many hosts), think
you'd be hard pressed to find better elsewhere. Nice control panel and
plenty of facilities provided as standard, unlike some services. I would
never depend on the ISP for hosting the website (and be inclined to not
use them for e-mail, either) Far too many people get into disputes with
their ISP at some point in their time with the firm (usually just before a
new one!) and having your website "held to ransom" is just not part
of my plans, so keeping it quite separate is logical. Also gets around
any specific "cannot use a residential account with a business domain"
rules - if the ISP has alternative e-mail contact address (such as Yahoo)
then with no link to tie the DNS etc to the ISP for the business site, they
cannot get snotty about having the wrong type of account.