ISP Standards for OMF'ers in Asia.

Bandwidth, connectivity, modems supported, phone-lines, dedicated connections and what else?  We do not expect all workers or OMF partners to completely understand all these terms, but by just asking these questions, an ISP can understand that these customers need something reliable. Here are some of the factors that affect your speed of connection to the Internet.

1)    ISP’s incoming Internet bandwidth – typical US ISP’s have about 90 MB+ Net connection.  A minimum of 1 MB+ is required for reliable connection to the internet.  These can be through copper cables or preferably through fiber optic lines. Typical Asian companies work with less than 500 K incoming connection – half of what we would like.

2)    Modem support and multiple access.  There are two factors to this.  One is the type of modem answering device at the ISP, if it supports K56flex or v.90 standards.  The other is Lucent Technologies Portmaster type answering device, capable of connecting to multiple phone lines and multiple types of modem without sacrificing quality.  The older answering devices, use manual allocation of bandwidth, that means idle ports (Where people have not even connected to their ISP will still carry dead-load or bandwidth)

3)    Reliability of phone lines.  ISP cannot control this, but it is just good to know the limitations.  Some countries still have non-copper lines (like aluminum / etc) to connect to the phone lines.  They also use manual switches, these cannot be reliable for the internet.  You just need to know that you will have poor connection.

You might ask how do I know if all that the ISP promises is true?  There are a few ways to find out.  If you can get a connection, usually the two-computer icon on your status-bar in the desktop will show the speed and current data transfer.  Beware, you could see a 28.8 K connection, but the data transfer might be completely dead - - - So you need to watch both to be able to understand your connection.

You might ask how good connection do I need, 14 K, 28.8 K or 56 K.  Here is a little chart for you.  If you get 5 e-mails a day (without any large attachments just text/rich text), and you check your e-mails once a week.  Your connection speed is about 12 Kbps, as seen on your desktop.  Your total download time should be about 1 minute, with your upload e-mails being about the same.  Your total connection to mail.omf.net to send and receive e-mails should be 3 minutes at most.

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