CIS 101A - Lab 5                Name ___________________________

Just about anything goes on this assignment. It is your chance to pick out a ISP and have me look at it to see if you left anything out.

Realize that everyone you talk to on the phone is not an expert (you may ask them a direct question, which they cannot answer). It is up to you to determine if their response is good enough for the service you are going to buy.

Remember, you get to be a "Joe/Joan J. Consumer" when you talk to someone on the phone. You are not required to know anything. (Some salesman may take advantage of that.) Don’t tell them this is a school project. I assume that by taking this class you will at some point in the future want to get an Internet connection, The salesman does not need to know when you are going to buy, just say "as soon as I select the right ISP" if they ask.

If you already have a Internet Connection that you like you can use the information from your ISP. Then compare it to 4 other ISP’s. If you have already done this process, you can use the information you received.

ISP’s

There are 2 general types of Internet Service Providers, Captive Providers and Direct Internet Providers.

Some popular captive providers are:

With a captive provider you actually log onto their network and they provide you secondary access to the Internet. You will only be able to access Internet services which the Captive Provider supports. Some Captive Providers may implement some form of censorship based on their perceived norms.

Some direct Internet Service Providers are:

Direct links are just that, they link you to the Internet, you will be able to access everything as long as you know how. These are just a few, your phone book will list many more.

Selecting a ISP Worksheet

You have decided to acquire a connection to the Internet. Call several ISP’s and do some comparison shopping. You can use some of the ISP’s or other providers listed on the back or select your own.

1) What do you want to do with the Internet ? (email, web page, chat rooms, games or MUD’s, 3d browsers). list as many as you come up with.

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2) Call a number of ISP’s and list the Attributes each offer below:

a) Speed - How fast are their connections (56.6K, 28.8K ?, DSL)

b) POP - Points of Presence - How many local phone numbers are available to call ?

c) Hard Disk Space - How much website storage space do you get ?

d) email - Do you get multiple email addresses ?

e) Total Internet Access - Are there parts of the net you can’t reach ?

f) FTP - Ability to transfer files ?

g) Telnet - Ability to connect to other computers ?

h) Gopher - Ability to access old style indexes ?

l) What will the connection cost you ?