Access speeds are rising, private Web space is increasing, prices are going up and prices are going down. The latest snapshot of the domestic Internet service provider industry shows one newcomer and many new services or plans for new services.
On the prices front, Indigo has dropped its price since the last table published in February, while those of PostGem's IOL have increased, and are now slightly higher than Tinet's. Dublin-based Club Internet and Connect Ireland are still the cheapest. Of the three large domestic ISPs, Telecom Eireann's Tinet and IOL are now roughly 50 per cent more expensive than Telecom Eireann's other ISP, Indigo.
There's some speculation in the industry that Tinet and Indigo, which are soon to move to the same building in East Point, are to merge, but it looks more likely that the two will merge some aspects of their business while maintaining two separate brands aimed at increasingly different parts of the market. IOL, for its part, says it is aiming for a higher-quality image. Club Internet boss, Tom Kelly, predicts charges will fall further, while Martin Maguire, head of Connect Ireland, wonders why some prices have increased when telecommunications charges are falling.
Note that ISDN is becoming cheaper and more widely available, although set-up charges are still considerably higher than for modems. Bear in mind there might not be a significant difference between a 56kbps modem and ISDN's 64kbps if telephone line quality is good in your area, since the slowest Internet link is often a remote server connection half-way around the world. But if you intend to spend a lot of time online, either ISDN or a second telephone line will save a lot of arguments in your household.
Many of the ISPs are offering or planning new services, notably Internet telephony, which should become widely available very soon. Stay in touch with their home pages for announcements.
Westport-based ANU has added a useful service to its home page: an online quote generator. This automatically gives users the prices of various business and domestic options, presumably reducing the number of calls to hard-pressed staff. One of the most significant changes since the last survey is the introduction this summer of the "1891" modem numbers, which not only give five minutes per call unit at peak times, but also simplify dialling for those of us who access our ISPs from multiple locations around the country. ISPs are currently notifying members how to update their dial-up software, which is usually a fairly simple procedure. Some of the 1891 numbers may not yet be in use.
For Windows 3.1 and 95 users it's usually just a matter of updating the dialled number in the connection properties box, while MAC users (FreePPP and ConfigPPP) may have to change both the server name and the dialled number. Your ISP should send you details soon, if it hasn't already done so.
As with the last survey, neither AOL nor Compuserve is included since neither has a strong presence here. Nor is Cablelink's recently-heralded service. Esat.net doesn't cater for non-business users. However, there is one newcomer: elive of Limerick. Run by Seanie Ryan, it is currently only available to Limerick users, but is planning to expend to Dublin and Cork.
Anyone shopping around for an ISP really should call the ISPs' sales people before making a decision. Firstly, make sure the 1891 number of the ISP means you get local call rates from your area, and check if the local POP (point of presence) supports your modem speed. It's also worth checking whether you need to pay set-up charges if you already have a browser and email software; Tinet, for example, says it doesn't charge for setting up accounts when it doesn't have to send out software. Most new machines ship Internet-ready.
While you're talking to them, see if you can get a figure for the number of customers and modems, and the amount of bandwidth the ISP has to the Internet. ISPs have been slow to release these figures, but, as a potential customer, you should demand all information you feel is relevant to your decision. Determining whether an ISP exaggerates its bandwidth-to-user ratio is another matter.
Finally, the really determined customer can try calling the ISP customer-support lines a few times over a few days to see what sort of support delays one is likely to encounter; you could also call the modem number from an ordinary phone to see how often it is engaged. However, bear in mind that ISPs tend to upgrade in steps every few months, with service gradually deteriorating and suddenly improving again. Today's ISP with most engaged tones may be tomorrow's with least.
Eoin Licken is at elicken@irish-times.ie