Let's say you signed up with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) when you were still fairly new to all this internet stuff. As time moved on, you started to realize that they aren't delivering on all of the promises they made in the beginning. For whatever reason, their service isn't what you want. Or worse, what if your ISP just closes suddenly leaving you without a host at all.

I know how stressful it can be on the surface, but relax and know that you aren't the first customer to be put in this sort of predicament. It happens every day to hundreds, even thousands of end users. They survived it, and with the right contingency plan, so can you. Switching to a new ISP / web hosting provider isn't nearly as scary or involved as you might think.

Probably the single most important thing that you need to understand and implement RIGHT NOW is the backup. Backing up your data ensures that no matter what happens to your website or the data on your web server space, you always have a current up-to-date copy of your files available to you in the event of an emergency and believe me when I say that emergencies happen. Servers go down and lose information, ISPs close leaving you stranded. ALWAYS have a backup plan!

With your backup in hand and your recent bad experience with your current ISP, start researching with your newfound knowledge in the forefront of your mind. Now you know the right questions to ask.

What are your bandwidth needs and what package does the ISP offer to fit them? Depending on where you are, DSL, Cable modems and Digital Broadband are all possibilies. The major benefit to these options is that they can generally use existing phone lines or cable lines. A word of caution on DSL though; Your connection speed can vary depending on your distance from the local source, so be sure to ask where the nearest source is to you and how it might affect your connectivity and speed.

The two major parts of an ISP service are the phyical network connection (the parts) and the network connection (the part that gives you the ability to surf the internet or send and receive email). Your ISP probably uses a Wide Area Network (WAN) to provide connectivity services to its clients. The largest WAN is the internet itself. You want to look for an ISP with a reliable WAN and high uptime percentage.

Finally, talk to your potential ISP to get concrete answers about their customer service capabilities. Ask for client references and make sure - before you have a problem - that your Internet Service Provider is going to respond to issues quickly and to your satisfaction.

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¶ 11:56 PM 0 comments

A long-standing question for potential VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) consumers is How much bandwidth does a VoIP phone require to make quality telephone calls??/p>

First of all, Bandwidth is defined as the ability to transfer data (such as a VoIP telephone call) from one point to another in a fixed amount of time. The higher the bandwidth speed you have, the more data you can send over your Broadband Internet connection.

There are two types of bandwidth at your location: upload bandwidth and download bandwidth. The Upload Bandwidth is the amount of data you can send to the Internet and download bandwidth is the amount of data you can receive from the Internet. The more Internet bandwidth you have from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) the better.

In most cases, the normal VoIP telephone call will use up 90 Kbps (kilobits per second). If you have a Broadband Internet service provider that doesnt offer much bandwidth then most VoIP providers give you the option to lower the VoIP voice quality by lowering the bandwidth used for VoIP calls to 60 Kbps or, to really conserve your bandwidth, 30 Kbps. Most people can't tell the difference between the three settings. We suggest you use the high sound quality setting (90 Kpbs in most cases), if bandwidth is not an issue. High VoIP voice quality is generally the default setting but if you are running into a situation where your bandwidth is limited then you can adjust your VoIP bandwidth to one of the lower settings. Some consumers with 128 Kbps upload connections can receive less VoIP service quality due to a poor quality ISP (Internet Service Provider). By selecting a lower quality VoIP bandwidth setting, this problem can be avoided.

If you plan on using a VoIP service provider, should you get a DSL or a Cable Internet access provider? In general, DSL upload bandwidth starts at 128k where as Cable Internet upload bandwidth starts at around 600k. Cable Internet is a little bit more expensive, but it is also about 4-5 times faster than residential DSL and a bit friendlier to a VoIP telephone call. Having said that, both DSL and cable modem high-speed services provide sufficient broadband Internet access bandwidth to support any of the top VoIP service providers. If you are experiencing low Broadband Internet Service provider bandwidth, we suggest you try Packet8 VoIP. Packet8 VoIP boasts an advanced compression technology in which each active voice line uses approximately only 23Kbps of total data throughput, upstream and downstream.

The amount of bandwidth that a VoIP provider requires to make a quality telephone call is only one thing to consider when choosing a VoIP service provider. In fact, there are many things to consider when choosing a VoIP provider. An educated consumer generally results in a satisfied consumer.

Please see VoIP things to consider article (http://www.voipchoices.com/voip-considerations.html) to find a list of more things to consider when choosing a VoIP provider. You can also compare VoIP providers side-by-side by price and features at www.VoIPChoices.com

Chris Landry is the foremost authority on residential and small business VoIP providers. Chris is the founder of http://www.VoIPChoices.com. Chris has prequalified several high-quality VoIP providers and compares them by price and features at http://www.VoIPChoices.com

Chris can be reach via email at Chris@VoIPChoices.com.

¶ 6:51 AM 0 comments