How we can choose internet service provider (ISP).

Choose an Internet Service Provider (ISP):

1. Look for the total cost over the whole contract: Pay attention to the information and prices next to the asterisks to find out the total cost we will be paying over the whole contract.

2. Set-up fees: Check what the set-up/ installation fee is (we might also need to buy a modem). These fees are often listed separately to the headline price.

3. How much data is included in the plan?: Most plans have data allowances that are measured in gigabytes (GB). Sites like Whistle Out have tools we can use to check how much data we are likely to use.

4. Technical support: Technical support depends on many factors, such as:

• Working hours.

• Number of telephone lines.

• Type of communications (by email, telephone, dial-free telephone, fax, web, ...).

• Availability of user manuals and FAQs.

• Solving problems online Availability of competent technical staff.

5. Will we be charged extra fees if we go over our data allowance?: Some providers charge "excess use" or "overage" fees if we go over our data allowance. It's important to check the cost of these fees. Most providers won't charge us more for exceeding our data allowance, but our internet will be slowed down for the rest of the billing month. If this happens, we can still do the basics like check our email.

6. Monitor how much data we use: To avoid going over our data limit, ask our ISP how to check how much data we've used during the month.

7. What is the duration of the contract and what is the cost to cancel it early?: Most contracts are for 12 or 24 months. Some ISPs will require us to pay out the entire remaining contract months if we want to cancel our contract early. Some ISPS offer services on a "no lock-in" or "month-to-month" basis, but we have to pay higher installation and set-up charges.

8. Reliability: There is nothing more annoying than dialing our ISP and continually receiving a busy signal. Or we may connect but be unable to do any useful work because of interminable delays. These problems usually do not persist for long, but they are definitely more common at some ISPs than at others. Unfortunately, this kind of reliability is hard to measure.

9. Quality of service: Quality of service depends on many factors, such as: The ratio between number of modem ports to the number of subscribers

• The total bandwidth to the Internet.

• How easily and quickly to get connected to the ISP network.

• How frequent a user get disconnected from the ISP network How good ISP's communications and services devices.