[climacs]

I am in a position to recommend a short list of ISPs from which to choose, for a medium-sized business (50-ish employees). Can anyone here (who knows what they are talking about) help me with a list of criteria to consider??? I don't mind recommendations for ISPs but what I am really looking for is to create and refine a list of criteria to guide the decision-making process.

Criteria (so far):

• must offer mySQL
• at least 100 mailboxes with sufficient server space and anti-spam
• nationwide dialup access would be nice, for those times when you're in BFE
• VPN would be nice but may not be necessary. This is a company which does automatic gate installation, parking control, and stuff like that. They are kind of like a subcontractor for specific needs of construction general contractors, so they are not running a high-tech business. Most of the time when their staff are 'on the road', they are doing installs, not conducting business from hotels across the country.
• I'm not sure what kind of throughput to specify, basically I want the client to not get dinged for above-and-beyond throughput so they should be generous.
• a couple gigs of server space ought to be sufficient
• RELIABILITY!
• 24/7 help desk is probably not necessary.

the client is thinking of implementing online invoicing but I am not certain where they are in that process, so I am not certain how that would impact the choice, if at all. It could be we simply include a link to an outside website hosted by the bank, so it wouldn't affect our choice at all.

I'm still refining the criteria, so apologies in advance if they are not specific enough for your inner geek ;-)

thx in adv and apologies if this is the incorrect forum for this post, this is the closest relevant forum I could find.

[ghporter]

This is not the context I ever expected to see a reference to BFE...

I'd say that VPN could be an important factor, especially if gate controllers have an "admin code" that's discussed. If that's not an issue, fine, but ask the client. If nothing else, you'll get brownie points for thinking about their business.

On a similar note, will they need the capability to log into systems over the Internet? That may change how they need an ISP to work for them-unless such systems just look like any other server on the Internet.

I'd say that this is probably the best place to ask about such issues (as opposed to asking from a user point of view, which seems to fit the Lounge better).

[mduell]

I think you'll end up with a better solution all around if you separate it out: ISP (dial-up access) and web hosting/services (mysql/mail/file hosting). Different companies specialize at each.