There are three Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Singapore: Pacific Internet, SingNet and Cyberway.
For other ISPs in South-East Asia, look at the web page Internet Service Providers in SEA. Several ISPs are listed in countries such as Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
For ISPs in other parts of the world, look at National US ISPs and International ISPs.
If you have a variety of ISPs to select from, and if it matters to you, you may want to take a look at the document How to Select an Internet Service Provider.
Personal Homepage: Does the ISP allow you to set up your own WWW homepage on their WWW server? If you plan to have a presence on the WWW, then you will want to select an ISP that allows you to put up your own homepage.
Shell Access: Does the ISP give you access to a Unix-type login shell account on one (or more) of their servers? Many end-users don't care for shell access, but the techies will like some of the advantage it provides.
POP3 Mail Server: This lets you pick up mail from your ISP's server so that you can read (and write) them on your own PC. Your mails are first received by your ISP and stored on their servers. A less than desirable alternative would be for you to login to the ISP's Unix server where you read your mail using some text based email tool. Most ISPs should provide POP3 mail service; What you want to look for is how much quota of space you have for your mails. This will be a concern if you expect to receive a lot of email.
Flat rate: You pay the same amount regardless of the amount of time you spend on-line and the amount of traffic you transfer.
Based on time: In this case, you pay according to the amount of time you spend on line. In most cases, ISPs you charge you a basic monthly fee that also covers a certain number of on-line hours; You pay according to a time-based rate for on-line hours in excess of that.
Based on traffic: This is getting rare. Traffic-based charging bills you only for the amount of data you transfer. Sometimes (even less common), traffic-based charging is combined with a time-based rate.
Additional things you want to consider:
Some ISPs have different charging schemes depending on your connection speed. You may be charged more as a 28.8 Kbps user than if you were a 14.4K bps user. These speeds here refer to the rate at which your modem connects to your ISP.
Also, look out for toll-free dial-up lines. If you're evaluating the costs of staying on-line, do not forget to factor in local call charges.
If you're a novice user and expect to need help, make sure a phone-in help desk is available. There is no use having an email help desk if you cannot even login. If it matters to you, ask if it is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
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