ISPs connect you to the Internet - at a price

In a hurry for info? Summary of details below:-
Good free ISP in USA - choose at dbk
Good free ISP in UK - tiscali.co.uk
Good unmetered UK ISP - V21.co.uk - £9.99/m all in for a 'Freephone' connection.

In the beginning, firms like AOL and Compuserve charged £/$15.00 to connect you to the Internet and they are still around. In America, where local telephone calls are free, AOL and their like, make money renting out their service.

Elsewhere in the world surfers pay for their ISP and their 'phone calls. In the UK, ISPs were allowed to make money on the cost of the local 'phone call to their site which spawned the FREE ISP. In USA, free ISPs make money from advertising, either with a banner on screen or an advertising break at intervals. Either way, it is obtrusive. Free ISPs can be searched for in your country by entering the text string ' free+isp ' in the Ask Jeeves search box below right.

Around 2000 UK providers started to offer free connection and free phone calls for a monthly fee of £25 or so. Often this required changing your telephone service as well which in turn created other connection problems. Some users took up the offer of unmetered access and set up a web server permenently connected which not only provided a very slow site but also went against the agreement with the ISP. To overcome this abuse, the connection is now automatically broken every hour or two. This is only a problem with big downloads and this problem is eased by FTP/server software that can pick up a download where it was interupted.

In 2002, the best deal for heavy use of the Internet is from V21.co.uk
For £9.99 per month the service includes:-

0808 Dial Up Access (UK FREEphone number)
Choice of upto 56k Modem, 64k ISDN
42 hours/week Internet Access
Unlimited PoP3 Email (you@v21mail.co.uk)
10Mb Web Space
Unlimited Web Mail
Massive 3 Hour Cut off Times
No Line Restrictions
No Fixed Contracts or Commitments
Easy Monthly Payment
PoP3 Mail with a rubbish filter
Smtp Mail
News Server Access
7 Days a Week Telephone Support.

Other packages from £3.99 per month.
Broadband available at £19.99 per month.