Free ISPs Are Not Really Free

Despite the fact that the Internet is available to anyone who wants it, you will first need an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to get connected. You may be shopping for a service that provides Web hosting and email, as well as the usual connection to the Internet. Most ISPs charge a monthly fee, but there are free services. At first glance, free sounds great. But this is a case where it's well worth asking how free "free" really is.

Free ISPs vs. Paid ISPs

FREE!!? As they say, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Such is the case with free ISPs. Although you may not spend a dime for these services, the costs may still be great. Particularly in the current economic climate, a free ISP will probably not be a worthwhile option as a primary means of connectivity.

The business model behind free ISPs is very tentative, since they rely on advertising (which many users find annoying) to pay for their service. Since CNET published the CNET , three months later, only two remain. BlueLight.com no longer offers free internet access. NetZero bought Juno creating the combined company: United Online. Of the remaining free ISP, many, including Juno/Netzero and Address.com , have begun to offer a "premium service" which allows annoyed users to upgrade to a standard, paid connection without aggressive marketing.

The following is a list of reasons why to not bother with free ISPs in the first place...

• Concurrent usage restrictions:

  An important distinction between paid and free ISPs is that most free ISPs do not allow different users on the same account to access the Internet at the same time. Most paid ISPs do allow concurrent usage, and that is essential in an office setting. If your computers are networked (and if you have five or more computers, they should be--see the Internet Connections section for advice on how to network your office.)--a free ISP won't work for you.

• Hour limitations:

  Paid ISPs are relatively cheap at about $20.00 at most per month for a dial-up account and about $60.00 a month for DSL for unlimited hourly usage (there may be a modest additional charge for multiple computers). Free ISPs may limit your hours. NetZero currently allows their free users (a virtually useless) 10 hours a month.

• Lack of technical support:

  Unlike paid ISPs, many free ISPs do not have adequate technical support. Sometimes a question that can be simply answered by a technician can take you hours to figure out on your own.

• Banner ads:

  Free ISPs have intrusive banner ads (unsightly advertisements your users are forced to look at, in exchange for the free service). This has become a much more annoying problem than was the case a year ago. The advertisers have developed all sorts of ads that refuse to be shut down. These "pop-up" ads, or interstitials, are incessant and are sometimes impossible to close down.

  If you are just using the Internet for surfing and researching purposes, the best philosophy for banner ads is to "turn on and tune out," like you would a television commercial. In many cases, banner ads, although jarring, can be minimized as soon as they pop up. However, if you plan to host your organization's web site on a free ISP, beware. These banner ads can cheapen the look and feel of your site and may dilute the power of your nonprofit mission.

• Platform issues:

  Free ISPs seem to favor Microsoft Windows platforms. If you have a Mac office, you may be out of luck. Paid ISPs usually provide reliable connectivity for most major operating systems.

• Spam:

  Spam is the primary problem with free ISPs. Spam is any unsolicited email (as well as a tasty, canned pork-derived treat). Many Free ISPs make money by selling your name to spam lists, which in turn, barrage your inbox with junkmail. Soon you will have an unmanageable mess of new messages that you will have to sort through. To make it even more fun, these spam messages often have deceptive subject headings that make it impossible to detect them at first sight. I don't know about you, but I would be hesitant to delete an email that says, "Hey Susan, I found your wallet/cell phone/keys, etc."

  There are free or low priced ($7-$10 a month) ISPs that claim to not sell subscribers' names to a bought list; mysteriously, the subscribers nevertheless receive tons of spam. Fortunately, there are services such as Spam Cop that will police your ISP free of charge. They can track down the offender, and report the spammer to your ISP, who in turn must resolve the issue with you.

  SpamCop responds instantly, while ISPs can take days to shut down a spammer at the source. For an additional fee of $12.00 a year this service will also intelligently filter out your junk mail for you.

  Here at TechSoup, we love Planet Spam. Despite the fact that spam is no laughing matter, Salon.com has put together this witty spam portal. This page will help you learn everything you ever wanted to know about spam, including how to wage war against it.

• Connectivity issues:

  Free ISPs have a tendency to disconnect their users. In an eight-hour workday, I found that Freewwweb, a free ISP, disconnected three times. I visited a user-reviewed free ISP center and this is what a user had to say about NetZero: "It is *very* slow, probably because of all the trash they download to the system. Their web page design is *extremely* poor. It takes forever to load." If you thought free ISPs were bad before, they are even worse now. Many services will prompt the user to stay online every twenty minutes. This is not the case with Paid ISPs.

  If you have a free ISP, you can spend a lot of time listening to busy signals, caused by a high users-to-modem ratio (the ISP doesn't have enough modems for its users during peak usage hours). So, when you want to connect, you can't. Even if a free ISP boasts a T-1 line, too many customers at once will slow your connection time and browsing speed. The lower the customer-to-modem ratio, the fewer customers share a modem, and you have a better chance of getting connected. Whether it is free or paid, aim for an ISP with a customer-to-modem ratio that is less than 10.

• Overwriting software:

  During installation, free ISPs sometimes overwrite the software and preferences of the paid ISP you already had. It can be a pain to untangle the resulting mess.

In short, the problems with free ISPs outweigh the savings. TechSoup recommends that you steer clear of the free ISPs and sign up with a paid Internet service provider. Free ISPs make it difficult to have more than one person on the Net at a time. Free ISPs are okay for at-home use or as a way to access email while you are traveling, but to increase your organization's efficiency, a paid ISP is absolutely the way to go. You can find a comprehensive, commercial listing of paid ISPs at The List . We recommend that you avoid new ISPs, opting instead for one that has been around for a while.

If you are looking for an ISP for home use or to access your email while on the road, or if you feel that your budget leaves you no choice, the free ISP that TechSoup recommends is Juno Free. They seem to offer a reliable connection, and their banners can be moved aside more easily than those of other free or cheap ISPs. Kmart's Bluelight.com no longer offers their free ISP, but for $8.95 a month, Bluelight Unlimited, the cheap ISP we recommend at the time of this writing, has decent customer service available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

To get more information on free and cheap ISPs, you should consult the only honest broker of Free ISPs, FreedomList . This international free/cheap ISP portal includes user ratings, reviews and a message board to discuss your free ISP woes with others in the same boat.