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WHICH PROVIDER?
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There are dozens of companies which will be happy to connect you to the internet. Here we take a look at a few of the best known ISPs
BT Yahoo The BT Yahoo ISP is a recently rebranded version of BT's long running service.
You can commit to any of the three levels based on what you believe your usage will be. As with all of these services, you can upgrade or downgrade your service level. The entry point is 'pay as you go'. As with mobile phone contracts long hours online could be expensive, but for limited use this could be the solution, Next in line is the 'Anytime dial-up service. You are not charged (in BT's case) for the first 150 minutes of use each month. The standard charge is £15.99/month. Then there's BT Yahoo Broadband.
Using ADSL this provides a faster connection (see broadband/dial-up comparisons). BT's charge for this is £29.99 a month. BT offers free set-up, if ordered online. Placing your order over the phone will cost you £70.
Freeserve The services offered by Freeserve are No ties (pay as you go), Anytime (the same deal as No ties but without the 150 minute limit) and Broadband.
The main difference here is that Freeserve is making greater offers to get you on board.
BT offers subscribers the first month on its Anytime contract for £5.99, whereas the first three months of Freeserve's Anytime package costs £7.49a saving of £15 in the first three months and El/ month thereafter.
Having no time spent online limit' is a significant benefit as you don't have to monitor time online. Freeserve Broadband connection is free of charge. AOL AOL offers the Anytime service for dial-up at £15.99/month with a first-month free offer. It also offers two levels of broadband. The standard Is the same as BT and Freeserve at £27.99/month, or the 1Mbps version at £34.99/month. These both have free set-up. The decision really needs to be based on what you need. You can happily run an office of six people using regular e-mail and web access sharing a standard broadband connection. More users could probably be added to such a system depending on individual usage. The 1Mb version, while quicker, limits the choice of provider to one --something the marketing team at AOL is, no doubt, well aware of.
Tiscali Tiscali is of Italian origin, but now operates throughout Europe. In the UK it offers a range of seven products. At the lower end is its Anytime dial-up service, which is free from standing charges. You simply pay for your local rate phone calls (about 4p/min daytime and 1p/min off-peak) on your regular bill. At the top end is Broadband x10 at £24.99/month. This is a 512kbps 'always-on' service. One useful tip is that Tiscali recommends having an Anytime account set up as a back-up or for use from an alternative location.
In conclusion AOL uses a different service to an else on the market. It uses its cm, e-mail program and web brows, whereas BT and Freeserve use ard Microsoft tools (free of charc factor tends to favour using Free BT in a business environment fc ibility reasons, although some p use AOL successfully in busine level of service offered is comp across all parties, so it is really a based decision.