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Comparison table of Moscow Dial-Up Internet Providers On-Line, It's All About Connections By Bill Fick For more than two weeks, news organizations have been calling me with variations on an amusing question: what will Russia do after being "cut off from the Internet" by America On-Line’s (AOL) decision to discontinue dial-up access via local telephone numbers in response to rampant fraud? In a decentralized virtual world without borders, the America-centric assumption that AOL is a vital gateway to the Internet from Russia is simply unfounded. Yes, the AOL cutoff in Russia will affect people, largely Americans, who travel frequently and enjoyed the convenience of direct access to their single AOL mailbox from local telephone numbers in cities around the world, including Moscow. Yes, the incidence of fraud in Russia will be a brake on the development of local on-line commerce more generally. But across the Russian Internet as a whole, few will notice or care that AOL is no longer available here. After all, why would anybody who lives in Russia pay as much as $30/hour for the privilege of a slow connection via an intermediary carrier such as Sprint to an AOL mailbox on a computer in the United States when home-grown Russian Internet Service Providers (ISP) with high-speed links cost ten times less per hour? Part of the problem is that the Internet services market here is poorly advertised. Most of the reader feedback that I have received in response to my column consists of requests for advice about how and where to obtain Internet access in Moscow. Thus I have decided to devote two columns to "nuts and bolts" consumer information which can help you make the right connection. This week’s column will focus on access options and choices for individuals, while next week I will discuss creative approaches to group Internet use in offices. To access the Internet from your computer, all you need is a modem, telephone line, and account at a local ISP, where you can typically obtain necessary software. Moscow’s crackling telephone lines are legendary, but with some effort you can usually make your modem work with minimal frustration, although you should be ready to re-dial occasionally after being knocked off line by background noise. There are two basic levels of individual service: Users who work with an "off-line" system (local ISPs will refer to this as a "UUPC account") have access to electronic mail only—no access to the World Wide Web or other services. You read and prepare e-mail in a special editor program without a live network connection. Another piece of software then dials up via modem to your ISP, sends and receives messages automatically, and hangs up. This type of connection is advantageous if your telephone lines are especially poor, because it minimizes connection time and will redial automatically until it succeeds. It is also extremely cheap, you don’t need an especially good modem, and aside from price quality of service from various providers is nearly identical. Users who work "on-line" (local ISPs will refer to this as a "dial-up IP", or "SLIP/PPP" account) have direct, live connections to an ISP and for the duration of their connection have access to the full range of Internet services, including electronic mail (you can still read/prepare e-mail off-line and send/receive in batches) and the World Wide Web. In Moscow’s telephone system it can be difficult but not impossible, to achieve speeds in excess of 14.4 kilobits per second when you dial-in to your ISP. If you need to buy a modem, a good economy choice for individual use is the USRobotics Sportster 14.4 series, which is available around town for about $80. A higher-speed (28.8 V.34) version of the same modem runs about $180, and if money is no object you won’t regret spending $320 for the professional USRobotics "Courier V.Everything", which will work at high speed and hold a stable connection even under the worst of conditions. The Internet services market in Russia is varied and growing rapidly. A number of ISPs have existed in Moscow since the early 1990s and continue to expand in size and array of services, while countless smaller providers and academically oriented networks have appeared as well. The comparison table accompanying this article, while not comprehensive, lists the major providers of dial-up Internet access in Moscow and two of a growing array of smaller, discount "sub-providers" which resell the services of the major networks. Since each provider has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, I can’t offer a simple recommendation of which is best overall, but will instead explain a few criteria which can help you to make an appropriate choice: Type of External Link. The speed and ease with which you can view remote sites on the Internet is a function of the bandwidth on your ISP’s connection to the global Internet and the number of people transferring information over that channel simultaneously. Demos and Relcom are the largest Russian networks with the most users but are also the first to succeed in making the massive investments necessary to achieve world-class connectivity. Ground links over fiber optic or other cable are faster and more reliable than satellites, which by nature suffer a half-second "hop" delay. Variety of dial-up telephone prefixes. From your telephone line, you may be able to connect more reliably to certain ISPs depending on the telephone prefixes they use. Most ISPs offer several dial-in pools in different parts of the city. Peer routing with other Russian networks. Most Russian networks are connected to a common data exchange at the city’s M9 international telephone switch, which means that data transfer and access among these networks is fast and reliable. If you use a network which is not part of this "peer routing" structure, however, when you want to access a website across town on another Russian provider your data packets will travel halfway around the world and back, producing frustrating delays. Portability. If you travel frequently within Russia, it can be very convenient to have access to your e-mail via a local telephone call in whatever city you happen to be. While Relcom and Demos are nationwide networks, each local affiliate is an independent franchise and your Moscow-registered logon will not work there. Only GlasNet and Russia Online offer true "roaming" ability, with GlasNet’s array of access numbers the more extensive of the two. Finally, of course, the type of customer service your receive is an important factor to consider, and I have never been happy with the customer service provided by any of the ISPs here. Increasingly, individuals often prefer to patronize smaller "sub-providers" such as Rinet and Mr. Postman, which offer somewhat more personal service and lower rates.
Armed with this information, you should be able to make an informed choice and achieve your ultimate aim: surf globally by connecting locally.
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