Contrary to claims we published in July (see SlipStream Data Touts Success), the dialup acceleration industry remains as competitive and cutthroat as ever.
Most reviews, such as this one in PC World, have found that the various competitors' offerings each have their own strengths and weaknesses (the PC World review found Proxyconn had the best cache and therefore the best speed on previously visited sites, Propel the best speed on new sites, and Artera's product the easiest to use but least effective).
When we spoke with Uzi Yair, CEO of Newport Beach, Calif.-based Proxyconn, he, too claimed to be number one in this space. Usually, you would look to an industry analyst for data, but despite the continued resiliency of dialup, the analysts at the major firms seem to be more interested in broadband-and in services like IPTV which have barely hit the market-so there is no publicly available data on market share. Artera, Propel, and SlipStream all have confirmed booths at ISPCON.
Proxyconn's latest improvement to its service is the addition of anti-virus from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Authentium. Yair says the company will sell the anti-virus through channel partners at a price of $1 per user per month, expecting ISPs to charge end users $2 per user per month. The product may also be offered at retail at a higher price, perhaps $29.95. "We have to be competitive with McAfee and Norton," Yair says.
He notes that ISPs seem particularly pleased with the ability to own brand the Proxyconn anti-virus offering . He adds, "ISPs can sell our anti-virus as part of the accelerator suite or as a stand alone product. They don't have to use our accelerator if they don't want to."
Partial test
Yair was so enthusiastic about the software that he offered us a test drive. Unfortunately, we have a corporate computer and we did not have a dialup connection to test it on. The cache did not speed up our Internet connection. The anti-virus did not find any viruses our corporate Symantec product had missed. And the accelerator crashed because our corporate connection doesn't allow proxy servers, which are so essential to the product that they're part of its name. The product served a single ad after it was first installed. All of the above shows why we do not test software at ISP-Planet.
The one element of the software that we were able to test is the GUI. The interface was very easy to use and to understand. When Yair says that it will reduce support calls, we believe him. We also, of course, tested uninstall, and that feature was flawless.
At ISP-Planet, we believe that any ISP offering dialup should also offer acceleration, and that every ISP should test the various available products from Artera Turbo, Propel, QuikCAT, Bytemobile, ICT, Proxyconn, and Slipstream Data. Each has strengths and weaknesses.
Yair says Proxyconn is closing deals with 3 or 4 ISPs each week. He admits competition is tough. "It's good for end users, and it puts pressure on margins. ISPs benefit from the opportunity to provide better service and increase their revenue."
The edge of the USA
We spoke with Tim McAfee (no relation to the anti-virus vendor ), general manager (as in "engineer") of Houlton, Maine-based Pioneer Wireless Network (network map here).
The company is situated on the Canadian border, with weather to match. "We've got two seasons here," says McAfee, "the season with snow and the season without."
The company has been adding services for residential customers. The standard residential package is 768 Kbps down, 128 Kbps up for $34.95.
"We had customers asking for software like EarthLink gives their customers," he explains. "We said we could not hire a developer and build software in house, but we started looking for options."
The company provides AppRiver anti-spam as part of its packages. It uses open source (GNU public licensed) software for filtering: DANS Guardian with the Squid proxy server.
Recently, it selected Proxyconn for the accelerator and anti-virus. Ease of installation-and getting three pieces of software in one package (anti-virus, anti-spyware, and accelerator)-were key considerations. The company also looked at Propel.
With all the software in place, the company expects to be able to charge $5 per month for Proxyconn, and to reduce support calls. "About 35 percent of support calls are related to spyware and viruses," says McAfee. He feels Proxyconn can help.
