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Unsolicited email is considered to be Spam by many ISP's in their TOS. An unsolicited email is usually defined as an email that you send to someone (anyone) who has not requested the email. Now how many of us can say that they have never sent an email to someone who didn't request it? Almost all of my email is unsolicited. I email manufacturers and online vendors with questions. I email financial organizations with account questions. I email friends to ask how they are doing. I email companies that I am writing about to give them a chance to correct or rebut my articles. None of these emails are solicited. Does that make me a Spammer? I don't think so, but many ISP's apparently do. And to add insult to injury, these self-defined Spam emails that you send may lead to outrageous charges and fines imposed by your ISP for each violation.
Some ISP's can charge you for violations related to your inappropriate Internet usage. These violations are based on their definitions, some which are entirely out of your control. If you, for instance, post a message to a newsgroup and for some reason, another person complains to your ISP, you may be charged for the violation. Most ISP's don't do this, but at least one of them in my table does. I'd prefer not to worry about these issues, thank you very much, even though my newsgroup postings are polite and helpful.
It doesn't seem to be enough to have only one contract for potential customers to read. There are almost always at least two contracts, each with thousands of word of legalese to decipher. Juno and NetZero have done the ISP industry one better with not only a Privacy Policy and a Terms of Service, but also an Acceptable Use Guidelines. Enough already! Perhaps I am becoming cynical the older I get, but there seems to be a direct relationship between the total number of words in all contracts and the hidden terms of those contracts that the ISP's don't want you to read and understand.
I decided to add a Word Count column to my table after writing that last paragraph to rank the ISP's and see if there was a relationship between word count and limitations, restrictions and hidden fees. The numbers range from 452 for Cognisurf to 11,746 for NetZero. By comparison, all the words on this page total 1,213!
WoldVerge claims on their website that there are no contracts, referring apparently to the fact that the service is sold on a month to month basis. But then they require you to agree to a TOS that has a $500.00 fine for every fraudulent message that you transmit using their service. Take a look at the contract and see if you understand what fraudulent means and which clauses of the contract apply to the $500.00 fine. I can't.
Thrift Internet has a whole paragraph explaining how their customers have to use links that refer to their parent company Ruralfree.net. Read it if you want to see just how ridiculous some terms of these contracts can be.
How many times have you gone to a website to download some software and found yourself looking at the inevitable contract page that you are supposed to read and have to agree to? These contracts are often in small boxes on your screen where you can only see a tiny part of the contract. Some ISP's have their contracts in one of these boxes. What is the purpose of this method of contractual presentation? Do yourself a favor and copy the text out to a Word document or any text editor and change the font to something easier to read like Arial. It is much easier to spot the sections that you should read carefully and those that you can skim over.
I have been critical about ISP's advertising unlimited usage and then specifying hourly limits and 'excessive usage' clauses in their Terms of Service agreements and rightly so. But there are reasons why discount ISP's have to limit your monthly usage. ISP's have to pay for their network backbone service. At $9.95 per month and under, ISP's can soon find themselves paying more for their support, network and overhead than they receive from a subscriber if that subscriber is online more than not.
I remember reading a post recently about a customer complaining about his dial-up service. He went on to say that he escalated the issue and got a response from senior management, to paraphrase, "what do you expect for $X.XX a month?" He might get an A+ for honesty but a failing grade for tact when communicating with customers. The fact is that the competition in the ISP industry has driven the prices to a point where some ISP's are advertising more than they can deliver.
ISP's could protect themselves with warnings to customers who are connected for 'excessive' number of hours. Customers need learn to disconnect during idle periods. I was guilty of remaining online during most of the day when I had Mindspring. Rightly or wrongly I figured that at $21.95 a month I could be a little bit lazy and just leave the computer connected. Even then, I was using 'only' 250 hours a month.
Bottom line is that for most responsible Internet users 150 to 200 hours a month is sufficient. If you use and don't abuse the service, most limitations of reasonable hourly usage aren't really an issue.
I chose Phreego fairly early on as it became clear that they offered the most for the least with the fewest restrictions for my needs. You may, for example, need a personal website. I don't. Phreego offers none. You may not care if you receive solicitations or have your usage tracked. I do. So take a careful look at all of the ISP's in the Comparison Table and find one that suits your needs best. Then take a few minutes to find the best ISP for you using the ISP Ratings Calculator.
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