Choose an ISP for Your Business

"I have more important things to do than hassle with my Internet service provider," says Rick Heflin, a photographer from Loganville, Georgia, who just months ago pulled his small business onto the Web.

Heflin has the right idea. Small businesses like his are heading online fast. According to Blaine Mathieu, a senior analyst with Dataquest, they'd better be.

"What small businesses really need to know is how to use the Web to retain their current market and build on it," says Mathieu. Attention, in other words, must be paid--to your ISP, to your business, and to what you two can do together.

ISPs have rushed to assemble programs that target small businesses. Services once spread out among a slew of firms--site hosting here, Web design and e-commerce there--have been put by ISPs under one roof: theirs. In recent months, for instance, AT&T WorldNet beefed up its Small Business Center, and Prodigy acquired BizOnThe.Net, a small business-specific Web hosting company.

At the same time, big service providers are buying out some smaller ones (see "ISPs@Risk" ). MindSpring and EarthLink's recently announced merger, scheduled for completion in early 2000, will operate under the EarthLink brand name.

Where does that leave you? If ISPs are courting you, you need to know the difference between a pitch and a promise. You need to know what's suitable for your expanding business in the short term and what's feasible in the long run.

To help you find the best ISP for your business, we dug into the crucial components of Web business services--site hosting, site design, and e-commerce--for 12 national ISPs. We also surveyed more than 5000 PC World readers to determine how well those providers serve their businesses. And we followed up by interviewing budding entrepreneurs about their real-world experiences.

The good news? Our respondents were generally happy with their ISPs. But few relied exclusively on their providers for all their Internet chores. Based on our survey, the happiest campers were customers of UUNet, EarthLink, and MindSpring. The least satisfied employed AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy as their ISPs.

Clearly, you need to answer a lot of questions before choosing the best ISP for your business. Here's how to start.