The bandwidth of your connection to the Internet is a key element in your success as an Internet publisher. Bandwidth is the speed at which you can transmit information and has a much greater effect on your server's performance (whether it's Gopher, WWW, or WAIS) than computer speed. This section is divided into three parts: concepts you'll need to understand, questions you'll need to ask, and places to look for an Internet service provider that will keep you and your users satisfied.
You need a full-time connection to publish on the Internet. You have to arrange this with an Internet service provider (ISP) and the telephone company, which will connect your location to that of the Internet service provider. Sometimes you can pay the ISP to take care of everything for you. This will be more expensive but might be worth the savings in aggravation. Also, if you are going to rent space on the ISP's server, or house your computer at its location, you don't need to deal with the telephone company. The discussion that follows assumes you need some sort of connection between your site and the Internet service provider. Connections to the Internet come in several flavors--analog, digital, cable, and wireless--and each has different charging schemes. We'll talk about only analog and digital; cable and wireless are in development.
An analog connection is the familiar business or residential telephone line. It's the least expensive but has a maximum speed of 14.4 or 28.8Kbps (thousand bits per second--the higher the number the better for speed). This is okay for dial-in browsing but the absolute minimum for publishing on the Internet. The advantages are easy set-up and minimal hardware (just a 28.8Kbps modem). The disadvantages are the limited bandwidth, which will make your server very slow. And the cost of using your phone line 24 hours a day will add up quickly. A business line usually costs more than residential. If your server is not for business use, you might be able to run your server at residential phone rates. Check with your telephone company.
Businesses that are in the same telephone switching area as their Internet service provider can sometimes use a Centrex service. This is not faster, just less expensive, because there's no charge per minute. It's a regular line but prearranged for 24-hour connection to a particular number. Contact your telephone company for more details and pricing.
A digital connection uses a different, newer, faster (and more
expensive) technology for transmitting phone calls. It comes in
various forms (ISDN, 56K, fractional T-1,
T-1, and T-3), not all of which are available in all locations.
When checking for prices, be sure to check on whether there are
different pricing schemes for different levels of support. If
you do the technical set-up yourself, you may be able to pay less.
A 56K leased line will transfer data at 56Kbps (or twice the speed of a regular phone line). It requires special equipment (a CSU/DSU and a router), so there will be equipment costs and an installation fee as well as the monthly charge. Many small Internet servers have 56K connections to the Internet.
A T-1 leased line will transfer data at 1.54Mbps (megabits, or million bits per second). This is roughly 28 times as fast as a 56K line. For this reason fractional T-1 is often available in different fractions as an intermediate option. The monthly line charges are less for fractional T-1, but the set-up is the same because it requires the full T-1 version of the CSU/DSU and router. The equipment alone costs about $4,000.
A T-3 leased line is the top of the line at 45Mbps, or almost 30 times faster than T-1. Few organizations get into T-3, and those that do usually are national network providers or major universities that support thousands of subnets.
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) is only starting to become available, depending on where you are located. It runs 64Kbps or 128Kbps. It is a tariff service, which means you pay by the minute, with different rates for different times of the day. If you can do Centrex ISDN, your bill can go from hundreds of dollars per month to $30 to $40 per month.
What is your guarantee of bandwidth? Everybody oversells because nobody needs all of their bandwidth all the time--does your ISP have any procedures for monitoring bandwidth? Or does the ISP just wait for complaints about overloading?
Will you have to pay more if you overload your ISP's system? What's the ISP's definition of overload and how is it measured? Compare what the competition says.
How many lines to the Internet does your ISP have? Are the lines to single or multiple national Internet providers? You'll want them to have multiple lines to different national providers to handle major outages.
Are there any restrictions on what you can use your connection for? Is commercial use acceptable? Check the ISP's acceptable use policy and see how your plans fit. Some ISPs don't enforce their acceptable use policy, but don't count on such laxity continuing forever. Make sure that what you plan to do is acceptable.
Can you resell your bandwidth? Say, for example, that you're in an office park, you buy a T-1, and then you get only 20 hits a day. If you want to bring your cost down, you might want to consider reselling some of your bandwidth. Some ISPs offer this as a selling point; others absolutely refuse.
How long has your ISP been in business? Talk to other clients, get references, and talk to them.
Post to Usenet newsgroups (particularly newsgroups in your area and alt.internet.access.wanted) asking for experiences with a particular provider. You are probably going to hear more horror stories than success stories, so take them with a grain of salt.
Are there any time constraints in the contract your ISP wants you to sign--is it month to month, six-month, or year-long?
Ask as many questions about delivery time as you can (the phone company and ISP both have to do installations). Get reasonable due dates and talk to both former clients and those who are satisfied.
How does the ISP handle domain name service (DNS)? Do they offer a secondary name server on a completely different network? Some ISPs will take care of that for you. Sometimes you have to give something up for that. The ISP may agree to manage DNS for you, but you may have to put up with delays. If you have the technical skills, you could run it yourself.
Does your ISP recommend any local line providers that they work with instead of the phone company? Who do they like to work with?
Does the ISP have 24-hour technical support? These are often called NOCs or (Network Operations Centers). If the ISP has a technical support staff, how do you get through? Do you page the techs? Are real people available 'round the clock?Or do they work only from 8 to 5, Island Pacific Time?
Does the ISP have any kind of general communication with its users, such as a mailing list or newsgoups dedicated to different subjects such as scheduled outages and other recurring problems?
How many subscribers does your ISP have, and how many of each type (dial-in, 56K, T-1)? This information gives you some idea of who you are sharing the ISP's Internet connections with and how much attention the ISP may pay to your problems.
The following sites have either advice or lists of Internet service providers. Particularly important is to read the white paper "How to Select an Internet Service Provider."
"The Internet Society's Guide--How to Find Internet Service Providers" <http://www.isoc.org/~bgreene/nsp-c.html>
"How to Select an Internet Service Provider" <http://tlg.org/how-to-select-ISP.html>
"Internet Access Providers--List, Links, and Advice from St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, Indiana" <http://sjcpl.lib.in.us/homepage/Reference/InternetProviders/InternetProviders.html>
"The List--1,119 Internet Service Providers, by Country" <http://thelist.com/>
"U.S. Internet Service Providers List" <http://www.primus.com/staff/peggy/provider.html>