Choosing an ISP is not complicated. Many Internet Service Providers distribute product discs that allow you to test drive the product before you buy, and they often provide a discount as an incentive to change ISPs.

I tried MSN on a trial basis, a few years ago, but it was not as user-friendly as AOL and I chose to stay with AOL. Now that AOL is free to those with DSL, it makes sense to keep it.

At the present time, my ISP is bundled with my phone company, AT&T. I bought the bundle over a year ago when I finally switched to DSL. At the same time, AOL offered free service to anyone who brought their own ISP. Now I have a AOL at no cost through my ISP and I have all of the user friendly features that I've always had.

There are a number of ways to access features on other ISPs. My son had AOL dial-up but spent the majority of his time on Yahoo.com. You can test drive them without formally switching over to them.

Choosing an of ISP that fits your need, comes down to the features of your ISP and what is important to you. If you are in a dial-up only area, your choices are limited to the speed and ability to access the Internet and the speed at which your pages load, and even how they display.

If games are important, you might choose Yahoo over AOL. If price is most important there are service providers like PeoplePC and others that cost considerably less than some of the bigger ISP names.

Some people live on the Internet daily, hourly and some by the minute. If your ISP places time limits on your Internet time, you would naturally want to choose an ISP that gives you unlimited time, if that is important to you.

I stay with AOL because of its user-friendly format. Now that it's free with and faster with DSL, that makes the most sense to me. If you're looking for more ISP choices, you can find information on the Web about features, costs and advantages of each.

Learn more about this author, Mona Gallagher.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about How to choose an ISP?
We want to hear your view. Write now!