Internet Equipment

In general Internet access requires a computer, a modem, and an ISP. But what are all of these?

Computers

Look at the screen in front of you, sit back and look for the box with the flashing lights on it, not the clock! But what type of computer do you need? The answer to that is very long winded, but simply to access the internet you will need a machine fast enough cope, with software that is easy to understand and configure.

Modems

This is a device that converts the digital signals from the computer into sounds that travel over the telephone lines. Every modem needs another modem at the other end to talk to (hence you have an ISP). The speeds of modems vary from country to country, and in the UK it makes no logical sense to buy a modem under the 56K speed. This is like saying that the Morse code operator can tap his key 56,000 times per second. At faster speeds the telephone lines cannot cope and you need to get ISDN lines installed which while very good and fast are also very expensive and poor value for money except for business purposes.

ISP

The internet service provider is your link with the internet. They provide the delivery services that all your electronic messages use. ISP's come in different flavors and at the moment the UK market is undergoing rapid flux. Over the last few years the ISP world was dominated by CompuServe, then AOL joined the party, followed by continual re-launches of MSN, and a flurry of smaller players. At one time there were hundreds of providers offering accounts and competing for customers. In the last few months there has been a rapid growth in a new market - the Free ISP.

To find out what an ISP should cost lets first look at what they have to do. When you set up an account with a provider they must create a username for you and assign it a password. Then they need to configure an email account and set up space on their server to store you mail. They also need to allocate space on their web server for you to store web pages. They might also have a front-end that sits on you computer that allows you to press a simple button to connect, collect email, and browse the web. If they provide their own content through this front-end than they have to pay people to produce it. They might also have to set up news groups for you and provide support if anything goes wrong. If all computers were the same then this would all be easy!

In the early days ISP's charged a setup fee of anything up to £50 to get you connected. They would then charge you a monthly rate of up to £25 per month as a maintenance charge to pay for the hardware for hosting, the technical support, and ongoing development. They would also charge an hourly rate to pay for the bandwidth that you were using, as well as you having to pay the phone bill.

In the last few years dozens of ISP's have been taken over, and a cost war broke out as the prices were driven down. Some offered free connection and a higher monthly fee, while others only offered a minimum of service at a reduced rate. Some provided content like AOL and CompuServe, while others just had a few web pages of advice for user support. This has now all changed.

Last year saw the prices hit rock bottom with ISP's offering free connection, no hourly charges, and monthly charges of £5 per month. This all seemed good for the consumer - and then someone had an idea. The idea was to make it seem free to the consumer. This was achieved by taking the money that they got from the local rate call the consumer made (only a fraction of a penny per minute) on the 0845 numbers, and by providing a self contained automated instillation system and adverts from sponsors. This enabled them to do away with the monthly charge, and so the free ISP market was launched.