June 2008

For years I have been telling members how to move to a new ISP and I finally got to practice whet I have been preaching and had to take my own medicine. The outline below is correct, but there are some fine points that you might like to consider to have a no-hassle migration:

1. Choose a target ISP.That I was going to go somewhere other than Earthlink was a forgone conclusion when I had to talk to 24 of their personnel in a 3.5-hour period just to find out a fine point regarding a static IP address. Where to go was the real question that was answered by a SPAUG member sending me to SONIC.NET after his review of DSLREPORTS.COM, was the place to go. Their ratings were straight-A then and now in the Customer Satisfaction department.

2. Research the items needed. Get commitments. One of the greatest concerns I had was that my older DSL modem would not be current enough or acceptable for Sonic and the point of agreement was hammered out that they would accept my DSL adapter. As a matter of fact, my unit did not work very well but I had another unit that was somewhat younger and that unit worked out just fine. The second unit was in their list of how to modify the parameters in the DSL modem to meet the requirements of SONIC.NET .

3. Set up an account and get the credit card integrated. Once you are a customer you have the right to ask detailed questions. Sonic never got past the 3rd ring before picking up. Impressive.

4. Obtain the parameters for the email. The process of obtaining the information that I needed for my computer was very instructional. I signed up on line but then it was time to have some help. I made a phone call which got answered by a real live carbon unit on the third ring and the carbon unit spoke flawless English! Problems of support solved! We received the key information and connection was verified in real-time by trading and tracing the progress of several emails. This also proved the connection. I happened to mention that my speed test was showing the old 1.5 KB/sec, not the 3.0 I was upgrading to. AT&T was called by the Sonic support carbon unit and the cap was raised on the spot per contract. At this time I offered to go for 6.0, but I was told that I was at 13,000 feet from the signal origin location and I would have to be less than 8,000 feet to get 6.0. The whole query took less than 2 minutes to research.

5. Initiate the move of the domain if you have one. This is the perfect time to create one of your own choice. It cannot be stressed enough that having a domain will eliminate some hassles if you get one even before you even think of moving to a new ISP. If you change suppliers, your email does NOT change. I have not had to tell ANYONE that I have a new ISP; my correspondents, for years past, have not had to be researched and informed of the change. A hassle bypassed.

6. Have your DSL modem on hand and knowledge about where a backup might be had. The possibility of using a modem that is NOT supplied by the current ISP is always a risk. The one I had been using for 8 years wasn’t up to the task and was proprietary enough that we decided to try my more modern DSL modem, which turned out to be better documented by SONIC.NET . As a result the parameters were entered into the DSL modem without difficulty and we were on our way. Time delay: 10 minutes to substitute the newer DSL modem.

7. Make a backup in case things don’t go correctly. To protect against catastrophic failure, make a backup. If you need to go back to the original ISP in an emergency, you can return without difficulty.

8. Print out the ACCOUNTS section of your email. Before you begin the transition, have the parameters that you used to have and again the new parameters of the ACCOUNTS section as you may need them for WEBMAIL or just setting up other accounts.

9. Research your options of DSL capabilities and initiate the order. completed, options were negotiated at the moment, having knowledge of what you can have versus what is technically impossible eliminates a lot of negotiations. I obtained from SONIC.NET a commitment that I could double my speed which is a great boon in the Clinic.

10. Tell your friends of your new email address (not needed if you have an existing domain).

’Nuf said.

11. Enjoy.

In addition to the English-speaking support that is answered on the third ring, my monthly bill went from $41 to $27 – and that includes hosting my domain of JIMDINKEY.COM and the doubling of the transmission speed.