All about ISPs

[allaboutisp]

How to Make a Web Hosting Service Saleable

Selling an ISP billing software system is a profitable business because everyone wants to be connected online but you will make most of it if you try selling web hosting service as an add-on. Think of the wide variety of customers you can attract offering a winner combo product. Businesses that are just starting will go to you because you’re not just offering a reliable internet connection. You will also help them on instigating one of the effective marketing strategies of our time. A good web hosting is the key to have a web or online presence.

However, don’t just offer a poorly-planned web hosting service out of whim for the sake of earning money. See to it you have the right arsenal or a package to be the most-picked web hosting provider. You may start creating one by following the specifications below:

Reliability

Downtime is bad for business while a consistent up-time will make your clients happy and content. In the real world, this is not the case so expect complaints now and then. But you must plan contingency measures ahead of time if a problem arises. You probably don’t want to earn some bad reputation while you’re just starting, right?

Support

In any type of business, one of the ways of effective customer retention is employing a responsible technical support staff. It is not enough that they have the knowledge about web hosting. Train first your staff well by teaching them how to handle different types of customers. Make sure they’re available 24/7 because you will mostly cater clients situated at different time zones.

Speed

Web visitors will surely hit the back button if the website loads slowly. It is a pet peeve of clients as well because it has an impact on their web presence and sale. Improve your infrastructure from time to time as your business expands and takes in more customers.

Technology

This is the core of your web hosting service. Be always updated on the latest web hosting technologies and identify which ones will help improve your current infrastructure. Think of winning features that will grab their attention such as large bandwidth, a lot of web space/storage, faster speed, amount of email accounts, number of sub-domains, and language support.

Price

Don’t sell your web hosting service too cheap as it will affect its quality or you might not gain profit at all. Create a reasonably priced web hosting packages and payment plans.

Lastly, don’t treat an add-on just a minor product feature. Treat it as the same level as your ISP billing software; a stand-alone product with full-blown specifications. This is to apply the same treatment in terms of marketing to increase its salability.

[allaboutisp]

Thou Shall Not Throttle Bandwidth

This has been a hot debate for quite some time yet the moment the ISP billing system (See: http://www.visp.net/ ) of your service provider generates your billing, you can’t do anything about it. You have to pay the said bill or your Netflix binging days are over. Whether you were able to efficiently use the bandwidth allotted by your service provider or not. 

As for efficiency, of course, you’ve done everything a typical internet user does. Stream videos, download games, listen to music online all day, and any activity to get your bandwidth’s worth. But are you really certain you’re indeed maximizing the data plan you’ve availed? Have you experienced slow internet speeds during those times? This is a common scenario but what if “outside entities” forced this snail-like speed?

The outside entities we are talking about are weak Wi-Fi reception, piggybacking (uses someone else’s connection), or you’ve forgot your Torrent is running in the background. These three could be fixed. On the other hand, there is another factor playing behind the scenes. Are you aware that your service provider has the ability and the “right” to throttle or cap your internet service?

Throttling is a practice done by service providers as their check-and-balance policy. This is a process involves limiting the internet speed of heavy users. Once they notice your bandwidth exceed the threshold they’re maintaining, expect a bottleneck while downloading using torrent or lag as you play an online game that eats bandwidth a lot.

In the United States, this issue pushed through the Net Neutrality or “open Internet” movement. It is a campaign initiated and coined by Tim Wu on 2003, a professor at Columbia Law School. As Save the Internet website defines, “it means that Internet service providers should provide us with open networks — and should not block or discriminate against any applications or content that ride over those networks.”

After more than a decade of nationwide protests, amendments, and hearings, finally, pro-Net Neutrality advocates won the battle. On February 26, Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a historic decision by 3-2 vote in favor of Net Neutrality.  This means ISPs should not block, throttle, and lease “premium lanes”.

Unfortunately, this is only a US-based law, so the rest of the world must continue watching their backs or their service providers. How will you know on your end you’re being throttled? We’ve found some diagnostic tools online you can run to find out if your service provider is capping your connection.

Visit M-Lab or Measurement Lab, and try out the tools under Performance and Transparency sections. They have Glasnost that can check if a curving or shaping in speed occurs when running bandwidth glutton apps. The Network Diagnostic Test (NDT), which compares the speed between your computer and network, and provides an in-depth analysis report as well.

What happens after you run a plethora of tests? Is it possible your service provider will take heed of your complaints? Because based on the ISP’s perspective, you’re the one who disrupts other users and their business. Is it time for a full-blast worldwide Net Neutrality campaign?