GSCL Online

Groshan Fabiola asked:


The Place for ISPs in Gaming is as a Pipe

What is most painful about the potential outcome of the elimination of net neutrality is that a typical access provider has few, if any, prospects of building a genuine business around gaming. No matter how magnificent their delusions of grandeur, ISPs have no true focus, no core IP to leverage, no pre-existing partners to prop up or acquire in gaming. In other words, if they kill off Blizzard Entertainment or Sony Online Entertainment, they will not receive any profit that would not immediately be absorbed in the call center handling customer satisfaction issues due to loss of existing games.

Unlike video and voice, where mainstream ISPs tend to have at least some competency depending on their heritage (cable vs. DSL), most access providers have no idea about what it takes to create and maintain a viable value proposition in the world of gaming, especially online, interactive gaming. To date, not a single top gaming company has been owned or funded by an ISP – and with good reason. The first tangible manifestations of an ISP’s gaming strategy9 are little more than casual gamer portals, dozens of which are already on the market10 with marginal branding and success rates.

Of course, the failure to date of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game to emerge from an ISP is not a particularly damning statement given that even top-notch developers have flopped in fostering true game communities (see Sims Online for example). However, the mere glimmer of success in multiplayer online gaming is nowhere to be seen for today’s ISPs. No set top box or other interface provided by an ISP can provide an experience similar to a console or PC, even for single player games. At best, it can be the platform for a casual gamer whose taste extends no further than card games. Given that online gambling is not something an on-shore company will want to touch with a ten foot pole, the upside on an ISP’s venture to provide games is highly limited in both reach and potential revenue per user, with annual gross/net revenues topping out at seven figures at most.

On the other hand, building and maintaining a truly open pipe for low latency broadband can and does fetch a premium. If the ISP is not in the business of telling anyone what to play or how much to play, but simply sells a bigger, faster pipe, the upside is astronomically larger. For example, Verizon’s FIOS is expected to reach profitability by 2009 with potential revenues well into the billions. Compared with the pennies to be made on building another version of Solitaire for the set-top-box, there is no contest.

Parallels with Mobile

To see the gaming world of tomorrow without net neutrality, we can look at the fate of mobile gaming. When RampRate conducted a primary research study on mobile application and game developers, we saw that despite some bright spots, the majority of developers were a sorry lot. To list just a few complaints, developers:

* Were forced to assume substantial business risk with limited upside due to draconian revenue shares;

* Waited on overdue payments from carriers for months with no leverage to collect;

* Had no access to the end consumer to determine customer satisfaction and potential for future offerings;

* Lived and died by their placement in portals or “decks” which was determined by methods that were at best inscrutable and at worst corrupt and arbitrary;

* Were repeatedly let down by operators, distributors, and retailers in developing coherent marketing resources.

In short, when the network controlled the content, developers could not effectively iterate towards improvement or be fairly rewarded for their accomplishments. Their businesses and products suffered, which in turn severely retarded market development. Mobile gaming today is probably better on an original GameBoy than on the latest smartphone. And for all the limitless possibilities of using unique portability and location features to create new gaming communities, there is no World of Warcraft or Everquest or Second Life on mobile. If IP networks become akin to mobile networks in their restrictiveness, we may all find out why billion dollar revenue generators such as these die off.

What Next?

The course of action is clear for each party involved. Gaming communities are powerful, profitable, and yet very fragile. Hasty change in this area can drastically undermine that which has already been accomplished – reducing the total size of the pie to the point where no entity will benefit. Regardless of position in the value chain, we should take careful steps towards change while retaining the basic premise of net neutrality. Specifically, we recommend the following steps:

* For ISPs — If ISPs are granted veto power over packets in their networks, the best course of action is to let gaming live as it does today. Considering the load on call centers, the publicity fallout, and the resultant future regulation that could be more stringent than that proposed today, any move to restrict gaming carries dangers far in excess of potential rewards. ISPs should understand that gaming is not a core competency in any sense, and better revenue opportunities from packet prioritization exist in taxing Google and locally monopolizing VOIP instead. By far, the best value proposition in this industry is to become the best pipe a gamer can buy, and make fast, neutral access a strength of the portfolio.

* For developers and publishers of online games — Flexing some muscle as both big spenders and influences on the user is the optimal path for guarding the status quo. Given that operators of online games have spent millions on network infrastructure and hosting contracts, directing the spending to ISPs that commit to keep their network neutral can be extremely powerful. From a consumer perspective, gaming companies have on occasion succeeded in forcing regional European monopolies to build better peering networks because they directed users to complain to the ISP about slow performance. It may be difficult to invigorate the entire horde of gamers to engage in direct political action (to paraphrase South Park , “how can you mobilize that which has no life?”). But game developers have many carrots to dangle in front of an unmotivated user – from virtual gold to über equipment — and creativity is their strong point, so perhaps some incentive can walk the fine line between mobilization and buying petition signatures.

* For commentators and press — The media should understand the value and fragility of the online communities being threatened. Instead of focusing on video as the dominant metaphor of net neutrality, there are profound stories to be written about gaming as a social network that, in mere months of existence, has already produced deep human relationships — passions, jealousies, even marriages. There are stories about how it added billions to our GNP and became a top export from the U.S. to Asia ; how it helped push the boundaries of software and hardware development; and how it added cross-cultural and cross-continental communications in a fragmented world. Each of these stories bears a mention about how it is threatened by the loss of net neutrality.

* For defenders of net neutrality — The coalition built to protect net neutrality should explore the ramifications of gaming as a threatened species. Potential allies exist in publishers, developers, network operators, and players. Gaming also opens up legal avenues to finding precedents for blocking packet prioritization on the basis of the irreparable harm done to gaming communities.

Conclusion

Out of all the victims of the loss of net neutrality, online gaming is likely to be the most fragile and irreplaceable. However, the immediacy of the harm and the lack of any tangible alternatives by ISPs may serve as sufficient cause to block actual widespread packet prioritization policies with regards to online games, whether by overburdening support resources (bottom-up action) or by tying up the matter in courts under the principle of irreparable harm (top-down action).

For more resoureces about Sourcing Advisory and more related subjects with Sourcing Advisory Services please review this website http://www.ramprate.com

Niall Roche asked:


The lifeblood of the spammer is email. They need to be able to send lots of it on an ongoing basis to stay in “business”. High profile spammers can send 80 million pieces of junk email every single day. Yes one single person.

ISPs all over the online world have vowed to stop spammers sending such vast amounts of email through their mail servers. Do they really keep their word? All the end user sees is that the spam keeps coming. There must be a loophole there somewhere. There is.

In the soft white underbelly of the internet there exists something known as a pink contract. The term pink contract comes from the color of the famous tinned meat that

junk email gets its name from. A pink contract is simply a business agreement between the ISP and the spammer. The spammer agrees to pay the ISP to turn a blind eye to the junk email passing through their mail servers.

Surely this is bad business for the ISP? Well the answer to that is both Yes and No. Yes it’s bad news for the people who receive the junk email and No it’s good news for the ISPs bank balance. A monthly pink contract can pay the ISP amounts from $10,000 upwards. Bearing in mind that the average work-at-home spammer averages $100,000 net per year the above figure is small change fo the bigger junk email vendors (the guys who earn $200,000 - $400,000 per month.)

But….. the CanSpam Act 2003… surely that’s going to make a difference? Of course.

Any ISP in the United States can get in serious, serious trouble for signing pink contracts. Problem is that there’s a whole big world wide web out there and the vast majority of pink contracts are signed with overseas ISPs where US authorities have no jurisdiction - China and Russia being perfect examples.

There’s no moral to this story. Spam is a huge problem that’s finally being taken seriously by Governmental bodies. However until they start imposing prison sentences or seizure orders on those individuals and companies in the pink contract business the problem can only continue

Kristen asked:


Today, communication over Internet has brought revolution in the world by making people come closer. To avail Internet on PC, one requires availing connection from ISP. The Internet service provider is a business or organisation that offers consumers and businesses access to Internet and other related services. ISP or Internet service provider is also known as Internet access provider or IAP. The provider offers Internet access through various technologies like dial-up and DSL. Depending upon the services and geographical constrain, ISPs are defined as local and national. A national ISP provides access to most part of the nation, while a local ISP offers the service to limited geographical regions. Connecting to Internet requires a telephone line to dial-up an ISP using a computer and modem. The work of an ISP is to provide efficient route onto the Internet for connecting with the world. The ISP uses IP packet switching technique of the network for transferring the voice, video and data.

ISPs’ are the Internet access providers while VoIP providers deliver superior voice quality to Next Generation carriers, businesses and individual users. The main motive of any voice over IP provider is to offer low cost communication over long distance and international calling. VoIP providers’ services are offered to wholesale carriers, contact centres, ISP’s or ITSP’s. With its state-of-art-technology, Voice over Internet protocol offers it end users with a completely flexible, scalable and reliable communication. The VoIP process is based on IP packet switching technique of the network. Seamlessly network transition in business helps to minimally affect the network operations during switching process.

The ISP provides access to Internet services, while voice over IP providers, use the Internet service to offer their VoIP services. Moreover, the communication through VoIP offers excellent voice quality with minimum latency and interruption.

Harris Andrea asked:


In this article I will explain how to configure a Cisco ASA 5505 firewall to connect to dual ISPs for redundancy purposes. Suppose that we have a primary high-speed ISP connection, and a cheaper DSL line connected to a Secondary ISP. Normally all of our traffic should flow through the primary ISP. If the primary link fails, the secondary DSL connection should be utilized for Internet access. Please note that the above scenario is valid only for Outbound traffic (i.e. from our internal network towards the Internet). The functionality that I will describe below works for ASA 5505 version 7.2(1) and above.

Assume that we are assigned a static Public IP address of 100.100.100.1 from Primary ISP and another static Public IP address of 200.200.200.1 from our Backup ISP. We will use Ethernet 0/0 for connecting to Primary ISP, Ethernet 0/1 for connecting to our Internal LAN, and Ethernet 0/2 for connecting to our Backup ISP. We will create three VLANs to support our configuration. VLAN1 (the default Vlan) will be assigned to Ethernet 0/1 (inside), VLAN2 will be assigned to Ethernet 0/0 (primary-isp) and VLAN3 will be assigned to Ethernet 0/2 (backup-isp). We also have to configure two static default routes pointing to the ISP gateway address. The primary ISP default route shall have a metric of 1 and the backup ISP default route shall have a metric bigger than 1 (let’s say 2). Let us see the configuration below:

ASA5505(config)# interface ethernet 0/0

ASA5505(config-if)# switchport access vlan 2

ASA5505(config-if)# no shutdown

ASA5505(config)# interface ethernet 0/1

ASA5505(config-if)# switchport access vlan 1

ASA5505(config-if)# no shutdown

ASA5505(config)# interface ethernet 0/2

ASA5505(config-if)# switchport access vlan 3

ASA5505(config-if)# no shutdown

ASA5505(config)# interface vlan 1

ASA5505(config-if)# nameif inside

ASA5505(config-if)# security-level 100

ASA5505(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

ASA5505(config-if)# no shutdown

ASA5505(config)# interface vlan 2

ASA5505(config-if)# nameif primary-isp

ASA5505(config-if)# security-level 0

ASA5505(config-if)# ip address 100.100.100.1 255.255.255.0

ASA5505(config-if)# backup interface vlan 3

ASA5505(config-if)# no shutdown

ASA5505(config)# interface vlan 3

ASA5505(config-if)# nameif backup-isp

ASA5505(config-if)# security-level 1

ASA5505(config-if)# ip address 200.200.200.1 255.255.255.0

ASA5505(config-if)# no shutdown

ASA5505(config)# route primary-isp 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 100.100.100.2 1

ASA5505(config)# route backup-isp 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 200.200.200.2 2

DOWNLOAD the best step-by-step configuration tutorial for any Cisco ASA 5500 Firewall model Here.

Don Reid asked:


If you thought dial-up modems were going the way of the Dodo bird, there are still die hard analog modem users out there. Not only are thousands of Internet surfers still using dialup, but businesses often make the best use of dialups for nightly back up purposes.

A recent survey by Pew Internet (http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/184/report_display.asp) provided an insight into the current increasing market of high speed internet access from homes while revealing dialup users loyalty. Close to double the number of Americans who access the internet at their homes say they use broadband connections rather than dial-up, according to data released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in late April 2006.

Statistics show American adults with broadband access at home increased 40 percent from 60 million to 84 million people in the year leading up to March 2006 – two times the rate of growth from the previous year according to another recently released Pew study. The majority of users surveyed, 62 percent, reported accessing the Internet from some form of high-speed service, while 34 percent stated they still used analog (dialup) modems – and they would continue to use dialup. That translates close to 25 million additional Americans are using broadband in 2006 than in 2005. With figures like that, it might seem like the demise of dial-up is knocking at the industry door.

Don’t plan dialup’s funeral just yet. Apparently, there is still a market for people who’s online needs are easily met with analog modems. The study also revealed that the majority of dial-up users, 60 percent, told the Pew pollsters that they had zero interest in upgrading to broadband. Another barrier analog modem cyber-surfers face: broadband is simply not available in their area. Dialup internet access is often the only choice for rural town internet access.

In addition to availability, the research hypothesizes that many dial-up users reject high-speed Internet services because of having to pay twice the price. The average monthly fee for cable Internet access was $41, DSL service was $38, where dial-up was only $18 per month. For web surfers everywhere, the monthly bill is enough to justify staying on dialup internet access.

With new technology and different business models, dialup providers are offering faster connection speeds than ever. By blocking pop-ups and other advertising images, users can often get the speed they need for email and web browsing. Like many services, it depends on what you want to use it for. Dial-up is still usually not fast enough for those wanting to download 100’s of MP3 and movie files.

While it does not presume to be a market for fast growth, the dialup internet providers who understand these user’s needs will continue to have a stable businesses for the casual internet user. If getting email and browsing text web sites is main need, dialup may very well be the best solution. An additional phone line is not always needed because the dialup user’s habits do not justify it. There are also technologies like “catch-a-call” which work in tandem with a user’s online connection and call waiting to keep from missing calls.

Another market the dialup access providers are pursuing is dialup connections to upload nightly receipts through an internet connection vs. paying long distance charges for a direct connection. While long distance costs have plummeted in the past 10 years, there is still a great advantage to making that local call each night to a dialup ISP instead of paying long distance charges.

With committed customers on the books and new ones dialing into the world wide web, it appears dialup ISPs can keep answering the call for online service in the foreseeable future.

Ron McNeil asked:


ISP billing software is a high-end solution for organizations providing internet and VOIP services. This allows the organization to manage recurring billing to its customers, thus maintaining a tidy accounting system, transparent enough to enhance the profitability of the organization. In keeping your accounts tidy and with all the necessary information available at the click of a button, your customer relationship factor increases to a greater extent, keeping your customers happy. The software provides ease of day to day operations, efficiently managing your customers, with you having an access to a huge lot of useful management reports.

ISP billing software lets you set up role based security, where the administrators of the software can be assigned a role each, with its own username and password. This enables you to designate the role task to each of your administrators, which is or are related to the person concerned. You can further restrict your billing administrators to specific IP address for accessing the billing interface. The software features database back up at intervals, so that the data generated by you is protected in the event of any disaster. Over-all a good level of security is provided by the software, and also a safe guard against any data loss.

A few of the main features of ISP billing software is mentioned below:

Recurring billing: In ISP applications, any billing software that you use should have the feature to support recurring billing. ISP billing software supports variable charges to be created for customers, which pertains to the level of service that is being offered. There are provisions to add as many recurring charges that you need to, to an account. Charges are automatically set up during billing process, with necessary appropriation of billing amount for those customers who activate and de-activate in the middle of the cycle.

Consumption billing: Consumption reading can be entered manually in alomost any format. You can configure the software with unlimited rate specifics and its components, where the rate component would consist of per-day, fixed charge and stepped-range components. Consumption-based components can have minimum amounts specified.

Invoicing: ISP billing software provides you with the facility to generate invoices for your customer. This is generally done for any chargeable maintenance and spare parts that might have been required during the maintenance. The invoices so generated, may be posted in your accounts books straight away, or may just be submitted to your customers as quotes and then posted as and when the quotes are accepted. The invoicing feature lets you set up accounts receivable, and revenue accounts for each of the items you deal with.

Penalty calculation: Penalties usually accrue on outstanding amounts. ISP billing software lets you calculate such penalties on the basis of the rates that you enter. You can set up an unlimited classification of penalties, and these could then be assigned to individual customer accounts. You can also set up minimum penalty amounts, or specify penalized items when you configure the software for penalty calculation.

Besides the above, advanced versions of ISP billing software has many other features, which include:

1. Subscriber Management

2. Individual and Corporate accounts

3. Prepaid and Postpaid billing

4. Prepaid card’s management

5. Hourly, monthly and bandwidth billing

6. Flexible Billing Tariff

7. Auto provisioning with different E-mail servers

8. Web based subscriber self-care

9. Multiple reseller/dealer tiers

10. Online credit card transactions

11. Invoicing system

12. ISP billing in ASP model

13. Robust administrative and end-user security

14. Scalable application architecture

ISP billing software is ideally applicable to the following IP services:

1. Dial Up/DSL Service Providers

2. Broadband Service Providers

3. Hot Spot Operators

4. Wireless internet Service Providers

5. WiMax Service Providers

The other big advantage in ISP billing software is that you can generate management reports under various classifications, whether it is based on customers, date/time, or rates. You can generate such reports under the different account heads, bringing in more transparency to your financial dealings with your customers. These reports can be generated in various kinds of formats, such as, HTML, MS Excel, MS Word, etc.

In order that your business operates smoothly you need to maintain your accounts tidy. ISP billing software helps you to do that, saving considerable time and your effort. The application demands recurring billing and ISP billing software handles it all, re-generating the bills each time as per the period specified by you. You can configure the periodic bill generation from the daily schedule to yearly.

ISP billing software has the advanced feature of emailing your customers, warning them of the status of their outstandings, and informing them that their account is about to expire. It could be that some more information of the customer’s credit card is required to continue billing. Or, the payment is long over-due, and unless the payment is made in time, the customer’s account may be suspended. All these matters need to be related to the concerned customer and what is better than automatic emailing, which is one of the great features of ISP billing software.

Sandra Prior asked:


With complaints about ISPs reaching new heights, it seems that more people than ever are unhappy with their provider, but unsure where else to go. If this sounds like you, then you need some strategies to help you out.

Keep Records

You may not think you’re getting the best service possible from your current ISP, but can you exactly say why? We do mean exactly, because vague thoughts like ‘sometimes it’s hard to get connected’, or ‘occasionally the speeds are slow’ don’t help you at all. What you really need are statistics – such as when you connect, how many times you have to dial before you log on, the speed you finally connect to, and so on.

Once you’ve been collecting this information for a while, you’ll find there are several benefits:

You can see when your ISP is least busy (which day, time of day and so on) and when you get the best performance. This helps you plan when to go online.

It’s easy to compare performance over time, so you’ll know for sure if things are getting better, or worse.

Do the same thing with another ISP and you’ll have a solid and reliable means for comparing the two.

Stay Informed

If you’ve been with your ISP more than a couple of months, then even if it was a good choice at that time, there’s no guarantee that it will be the best one available now. ISP performance can fluctuate considerably in just a few weeks.

Until ISPs get their acts together and deliver a more reliable service all round, there’s no real solution to this. You can manage the problem, though, by keeping an eye on other people’s Internet Experiences.

Making Do

What’s the most important feature of an ISP? Most people would choose speed above everything else, but it’s not the only factor; you’re likely to want a good email system, a reliable news server that carries lots of newsgroups, and perhaps a large chunk of free disk space for your web page.

Finding an ISP that gives you everything you need is difficult, so it might be easier not to even try. There’s a number of things you can do to get by:

Very basic ISPs don’t even provide an email service. You could use a free web mail service instead. Many support POP3 so you could still use Outlook Express to handle your email.

Even if your ISP has a news server, it may not be very good, perhaps not carrying the newsgroups you need, or expiring articles in just a few days. You’ll have to find lists of alternative, public news servers.

Beware Great Offers

While it’s great to hear the latest news about the launch of a new ISP, this can be a problem. The fantastic benefits offered in their advertisements are all unknown, which results in people signing up eagerly only to find that it does not meet their expectations. As a result, we wouldn’t recommend signing up for any new ISP until it’s been running for at least a couple of months, and you can hear what others have to say.

Hannah Miller asked:


Dial-up internet service is about the same connection speed regardless of which company is providing the service. Although some ISP’s offer accelerators, the connection speed still typically range from 20-50 kbps (kilobits per second) as a result of 1) the quality of the phone line, 2) the distance of the phone line source and the house, and 3) the type/quality of the dial-up modem.

Therefore, choosing a dial-up provider is important not because one is faster than another, but because the customer service, payment methods, terms of service, and other important features vary greatly from one company to another.

You’ve probably heard of several larger companies who provide dial up internet, like AOL, Earthlink, and Netzero. These companies have become a household name commonly associated with dial up, but they are not the only dial up providers. It would be easy to find and sign up for Internet service with these companies, but you could be making a mistake. Many larger dial up ISP’s have sent their customer service to outsourced call centers in order to save money. Some of them require you to sign up for a contract. Some charge fees for technical support or cancellation. You have to consider multiple factors when choosing the best Internet service, and this will take some research.

Fortunately, some of this research has been done for you. There are several websites that list the top rated dial-up providers, including the lesser known ISP’s who are more concerned about doing you a favor than making a lot of money. Here three websites who show the facts for a variety of Internet services:

ISPCompared.com Cheap56K.com

TheISPGuide.com



Of all the prominent ISP comparison websites, these have a wide selection, quality up-to-date information, and easy navigation.

These sites show all the basics at a glance—price, ratings, features, and special offers. They also link to reviews, which can be very handy when weighing your options. Wouldn’t you want to know what company has the happiest customers? What did an actual customer say about the ISP that interests you? Keep in mind that solitary negative (especially heated and derogatory) reviews could be an isolated situation that bears no relevance to the average user.

Another benefit of using an ISP comparison website is that most companies offer a discount to new customers, and these websites often directly link to that site’s promotional web page for easy sign up. You will not only find a satisfactory ISP, but you will also save money!

Choosing the best ISP may be a process of trial and error. These websites will help make the best choice the first time. They also provide some information about dial-up and Internet service in general if this is your first time choosing your own company.

There are many companies who sell dial-up, and just because everyone you know has Earthlink or you grew up on AOL doesn’t mean you have to be one of their customers too. Take advantage of a competitive market and find the service that’s best for you.

Mike asked:


Live customer support services are being utilized by almost every online business now! ISP’s are being heavily dependent on good live customer support services too, specially in UK.

At LiveAdmins, To provide good live customer support servicesfor online businesses, our Live Operators undergo training suitable for the roles they are assigned and completely act as employees of the businesses they are working for. Live Admins also supply Live Chat services to a site that provides ISP ( internet service providers). The job of Live Operator for this site calls for a very thorough and detailed training program to familiarize the Live Operators with the technicalities associated with the subject.

Website visitors want quick and the right kind of information and that necessitates the right kind of training. Our Live customer support Operators have all the knowledge regarding the product/services and the model of the businesses for which they work. When a Live Operator is not well versed with the product/service knowledge, then a delay in responding to visitors’ queries and providing incorrect information is inevitable, both of which succeed in losing potential customers. The right kind of education and coaching is, therefore, necessary for Live Operators to execute their jobs effectively.

In this instance, the Live Operators are trained in such a manner so that they can skillfully handle customers’ questions such as, “does the site provide mail forwarding service?”, “what are the connection charges, can you change the tariff?” or “what are the contract details, can the conditions change?”. To answer these questions, the Live Operators need to know the business inside out.

Our Live Operators are completely familiar with the services provided by the website and can confidently handle questions concerning these services. As mentioned before, the Live Operators need to familiarize themselves with all the technicalities associated with the subject for this job. Therefore, the Live Operator is someone who has more than a basic IT knowledge. This is so because Live Operators for this site are constantly asked questions such as “can the ISP set me up with my own domain name and provide web space on their server?” or “what security options does the ISP give?”. All this would be gibberish to a layman, which is why the right kind of training is essential.