Guys,
At work we dont have a great need for the internet but we do use it a fair amount for emails - and the emails we recive are getting larger and larger.
So I'm looking to change from a 512-128 connection to an ADSL2+ connection.
We only do about 6gig a month in downloads
My question is is there a major difference between the "business" plans some ISPs offer compared to a standard plan.
Im looking at going with an ISP on either the TPG, Optus or Primus network.
Any advice appreciated
Cheers,
Kirk
PS were currently paying $45 per month for 512-128 with 20gig DL
Full Version: How to choose an ISP?
www.whirlpool.net.au
honestly mate Whirlpool is about as useful as a hat full of a$sholes. Its all tight a$s home users whinging about not being able to get difference services.
Edit : sorry mate that wasnt a go at you - more just a rant at how end users have pretty much borked what could be a very informative and useful site
Edit : sorry mate that wasnt a go at you - more just a rant at how end users have pretty much borked what could be a very informative and useful site
Simple stuff for starters:
- Service Level Agreement. Things like monthly uptime, minimum speed, contention for the network etc, check what they promise to deliver. This is the major difference between a home plan, and business, you have a certain level of service and performance that your guaranteed more or less.
- Support, you should have access to a 'business' level support, much shorter queues, generally better staff, and the ability to contact a supervisor or possibly manager, should things go really AWOL.
- Usage fee's, if you ever go over that 6gb~, you dont want to be paying hundreds extra per gig.
- Ability to run services, FTP, HTTP, POP etc should you need them, standard home users arent able to run such services. Nothing big, but its nice to have.
Don't discredit whirlpool completely. Broadband choice is good to compare plans against, and if you watch the different ISP forums, you can see which ISP's have weak points at by how much a topic is raised.
Just an ISP to suggest, http://www.internode.on.net/ ?
- Service Level Agreement. Things like monthly uptime, minimum speed, contention for the network etc, check what they promise to deliver. This is the major difference between a home plan, and business, you have a certain level of service and performance that your guaranteed more or less.
- Support, you should have access to a 'business' level support, much shorter queues, generally better staff, and the ability to contact a supervisor or possibly manager, should things go really AWOL.
- Usage fee's, if you ever go over that 6gb~, you dont want to be paying hundreds extra per gig.
- Ability to run services, FTP, HTTP, POP etc should you need them, standard home users arent able to run such services. Nothing big, but its nice to have.
Don't discredit whirlpool completely. Broadband choice is good to compare plans against, and if you watch the different ISP forums, you can see which ISP's have weak points at by how much a topic is raised.
Just an ISP to suggest, http://www.internode.on.net/ ?
Best ISP i have found with no down time (been 6 months so far) is exetel (www.exetel.com.au)and you get a Static IP, 250mb Web server with My SQL etc no limit to bandwidth and doesn't go onto monthly limit 10 free Email addresses and no ports blocked at all. I can run a web server, game servers and torrents etc all off my PC fine. This is just a normal residentual one to (can get bussiness net to but why bother).
I pay $85 a month for 80gb Downloads ADSL1 8mb speed (Can't get ADSL2 in my area yet but they do offer ADSL2) with all the above features. I set up over the net and it only cost me $30 to churn the net over (They will cancel your old net at end of the month and change it over all for you all ya have to do is put in new User and Pass into modem) no other fees no nothing. Oh and you can also send TXT's for 5c over the net on your account page and email to fax etc i would reccomend them to anyone i had researched for about a year to find the best for my money and i think i did just that no limits on ports and static ip was the biggest Plus
I pay $85 a month for 80gb Downloads ADSL1 8mb speed (Can't get ADSL2 in my area yet but they do offer ADSL2) with all the above features. I set up over the net and it only cost me $30 to churn the net over (They will cancel your old net at end of the month and change it over all for you all ya have to do is put in new User and Pass into modem) no other fees no nothing. Oh and you can also send TXT's for 5c over the net on your account page and email to fax etc i would reccomend them to anyone i had researched for about a year to find the best for my money and i think i did just that no limits on ports and static ip was the biggest Plus
I ended up going aaNet. I use them at home and my parents use them and have done so since we first got adsl which would have to be close to 6 years if not longer ago now.
Never really had any issues and I can only recall 2 real drop outs in that time.
At work we are on an ADSL 2+ plan but due to the distance from the exchange we are getting speeds like this:
Which isnt too bad concidering we were only on a 512 connection before and for our needs it fits the bill perfectly. We wanted a speed increase to help the girls logging on remotely (one using remote desktop one using VPN) and to help with the time it takes to send emails - so far its better than we had hoped for.
We also now have the option of getting a '3' mobile wireless broadband USB card if we want as a backup - which is something the boss is concidering. I personally dont think we really need it but hey - we'll wait and see what his decision is.
Never really had any issues and I can only recall 2 real drop outs in that time.
At work we are on an ADSL 2+ plan but due to the distance from the exchange we are getting speeds like this:
Which isnt too bad concidering we were only on a 512 connection before and for our needs it fits the bill perfectly. We wanted a speed increase to help the girls logging on remotely (one using remote desktop one using VPN) and to help with the time it takes to send emails - so far its better than we had hoped for.
We also now have the option of getting a '3' mobile wireless broadband USB card if we want as a backup - which is something the boss is concidering. I personally dont think we really need it but hey - we'll wait and see what his decision is.
Just wound out EXETEL is aaNets parent company now and has apparently always been their wholesaler
Main difference usually between "business" plans and "consumer" plans is:
1. Most Business plans come with a Service Level Agreement (as previously mentioned)
2. Business plans should give you at least 1 static IP address
1. Most Business plans come with a Service Level Agreement (as previously mentioned)
2. Business plans should give you at least 1 static IP address
aanet and exetel give 1 static ip free of charge (was paying $5 per month for whis with people telecom) on a residential plan
SLA is fine - but for a bussiness with minimal reliance on the internet its not worth paying $100+ per month for something that can be had for $50.
For redundancy we (now) have a "3" mobile broadband 'modem' which is on a by the month plan - ie if we need it we get it turned on and if we dont we turn it off. Concidering we've had 1 major (ie more then 3 hours) drop out in the last 4 years (which happend last monday and tuesday actually) I dont think we will be relying on it too much. And cause we are on an "on demand" type setup it costs us $29 for 1 gig. other wise if we find we need it more than 6 months in the year we might look at putting it on a plan for $15 per month for 1 gig.
Speed isnt super important to us - but its nice to have. Plus can switch to IMAP rather than POP3 to DL mail (a mail server is the next thing on the list as we are finding the limits of PST files) when our ADSL2 is down too to take the load off the wireless broadband a bit so we only have to download urgent attachments whilst our main service is down and all other attachments can wait untill the adsl is back up again.
Dont get me wrong - there is a place for business and "commercial" internet connections. Ie where I used to work we had two offices in the philippines two in china and two in the states and a second office in ballarat. we needed good reliable service and we could justify paying about $600 per month for our internet connection with remote backups and reduntant link (which was to a seperate exchange and provided by a different ISP on a different DSLAM).
But for a business like ours things like SLAs and 2 hour responce times, redundant links and load sharing routers etc arent required.
SLA is fine - but for a bussiness with minimal reliance on the internet its not worth paying $100+ per month for something that can be had for $50.
For redundancy we (now) have a "3" mobile broadband 'modem' which is on a by the month plan - ie if we need it we get it turned on and if we dont we turn it off. Concidering we've had 1 major (ie more then 3 hours) drop out in the last 4 years (which happend last monday and tuesday actually) I dont think we will be relying on it too much. And cause we are on an "on demand" type setup it costs us $29 for 1 gig. other wise if we find we need it more than 6 months in the year we might look at putting it on a plan for $15 per month for 1 gig.
Speed isnt super important to us - but its nice to have. Plus can switch to IMAP rather than POP3 to DL mail (a mail server is the next thing on the list as we are finding the limits of PST files) when our ADSL2 is down too to take the load off the wireless broadband a bit so we only have to download urgent attachments whilst our main service is down and all other attachments can wait untill the adsl is back up again.
Dont get me wrong - there is a place for business and "commercial" internet connections. Ie where I used to work we had two offices in the philippines two in china and two in the states and a second office in ballarat. we needed good reliable service and we could justify paying about $600 per month for our internet connection with remote backups and reduntant link (which was to a seperate exchange and provided by a different ISP on a different DSLAM).
But for a business like ours things like SLAs and 2 hour responce times, redundant links and load sharing routers etc arent required.
Just a warning, Dont go with TPG, We had nothing but troubles and same with the Missus, they had TPG aswell and it was hopeless.
I worked for Westnet for a year... decent company with good people. Average age of the company is 24!
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.