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Policy Considerations for Choosing an ISP



I am presently buidling a web page to catalogue the differences in
policy among various Internet Service Providers.

http://afs.eecs.harvard.edu/~goodell/policy.html

Consumers often consider factors such as traffic latency, peak data
rate, ease of setup, reliability, and cost when choosing Internet
Service Providers.  However, customers often overlook the vast
differences in <span class="heading">policy</span> among ISPs, and these
differences have a substantial effect on the end-user experience.  In
addition, the actual policy imposed by an ISP may not match what the ISP
advertises in its brochures or its formal policy statements.

I chose some policy metrics, listed a few examples of real-world ISPs,
and rated the ISPs according to the metrics.  Please take a look at the
page and let me know how it might be improved.

However, I personally do not know about very many ISPs, and I would like
to add entries for ISPs around the world.  If you are interested in
helping to make this list a bit more comprehensive, then please send me
mail reporting about your ISP!  Please include as many of the following
factors as you can:

- ISP name
- ISP URL
- ISP geographic coverage area
- numeric ratings for restrictions and sensitivity, as per the
  instructions on the page
- approximate monthly cost in USD for the service you describe
- upload / download peak capacity
- physical medium / anecdotes / remarks

I think that this page has the potential to become quite useful, since
cataloguing the important policy factors could some day create a
competitive market for policies that match customer interests!

Thanks,

Geoff

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