🚀 go-pugleaf

gandalf1@erinet.com wrote:
>Is there a future for independent small ISP's

It really depends on what sorta service they are offering. If you are 
talking just straight SLIP/PPP/etc access for surfing and email, I am 
guessing that the AT&Ts and telcos and cablecos of the world are going to 
devour this market within the next year or two.

OTOH, I kinda doubt that these megacorps are going to get into the 
webhosting business in a big way, the exemplar being Netcom, which 
basically offers access, not hosting. I am currently betting that those 
small ISPs who focus on webhosting will be the ones left standing the 
longest. It is said that PSInet offers webhosting, but anecdotally it 
seems that they only want to deal with the sorta MIS propeller.heads who 
populate Fortune 1000 corporations, leaving several hundred times as many 
mom-and-pop operations looking for a more friendly place to host their 
content. 

I am currently betting that those small ISPs who focus on webhosting will 
be the ones left standing the longest. Based on my impression of the 
current technical difficulties in running one domain through two 
services, it seems that folks with a web presence will continue using 
their WWW ISP for access as well. Not a booming market, but a stable one 
for those who implement this business model sooner rather than later. 
Thus far, however, not too many ISPs seem to have caught on, and we are 
still in search of a really web-friendly ISP.

>I've always enjoyed knowing the people I'm hooked up with.

Well, I would very much enjoy coming to know the people I'm hooked up 
with, but at least until recently they have been notoriously difficult to 
get ahold of. Personalized customer service is going to be one of the big 
discriminators for which ISPs are still around a year or two down the 
road, and those who view the customer service department as a cost center 
rather than a profit center are going to be in real trouble.

-- 
John Pike
Federation of American Scientists  http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/
CyberStrategy Project              http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/cp/
Intelligence Reform Project        http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/irp/
Military Analysis Network          http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/man/
Space Policy Project               http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/spp/