The dialup accelerator announced today that it is adding a slew of additional features to its dialup package, anticipating that ISPs want it all in one client, one app, one download, one support call.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [July 19, 2004]

Irvine, Calif.-based Proxyconn today announced it is supplementing its accelerator with anti-spyware, parental controls, and even a feature that helps ISPs sell new services to end users.

Whether users will want to receive pop up ads from their ISP is up to each individual ISP to decide, but however they do it, ISPs will want to have an infrastructure in place that allows users to buy additional services on demand, especially if they offer or are planning on offering VoIP, gaming services, or even just webhosting.

Uzi Yair, CEO of Proxyconn, acknowledges that anti-spyware and parental controls face stiff competition from stand alone applications. But he feels that having it all on one client will be especially important to dialup ISPs and their users.

"The benefit of our client is that it is provided within 1 MB for dialup users. If you ask users to download many software packages, each download risks support calls. Our simple UI makes it easy, even for the basic user. Also, this gives ISPs a new option. ISPs are recommending free products to users because they cannot offer anything themselves."

In the case of anti-spyware, free products such as Spybot and Ad-Aware will provide tough competition. In the case of parental controls, it's the expensive products that will provide tough competition.

Although the parental controls sound rudimentary, simply consisting of a feature that enables whitelist and blacklist functions but does not populate those whitelists and blacklists automatically, Yair says users aren't asking for more. "It is sufficient for what most users are looking for," he says.

It's password protected, and, of course, no parental control vendor will ever warrant against the ingenuity of an eight year old child. The industry joke that gets passed around discussion forums is of the couple that asks their child to install the parental control software and is not even aware of the fact that the child knows the password, but the parents do not.

Yair says his company's technology, as well as ISP requests for more features, drove the addition of the features. "Because of our technology, our proxy server technology, we're able to monitor spyware requests and kill them transparently. Strategically, it's easy to incorporate other technologies, but our technology is developed from scratch for dialup. It's a compact client, and we want to remain below 2 MB."

Of course, Yair would like to add anti-spam and anti-virus, both of which sell well because their usefulness is recognized by both ISPs and end users. Yair says that the proliferation of applications is making life tougher for ISPs.

"When I talk to ISPs, I find that when they license a new product, there's an implementation cycle, a support cycle, a training cycle, and they don't want to do it multiple times."

We spoke to a new but happy customer, of VISP.net, whose ISP in a Box product now features Proxyconn. The company looked at SlipStream, Propel, and Proxyconn and found that all had similar speeds, though "Proxyconn averaged faster than the other two in tests." The company also tested Webrunner and Netrocket, which did not do as well.

Todd Grannis, President and CEO, says he is looking forward to adding features for ISP customers of all sizes. "Small ISPs have a hard time competing against AOL, Earthlink, and MSN because they have huge R&D budgets and smaller ISPs don't have those budgets."

But he also acknowledges that he and his client ISPs take full advantage of the free security services available to surfers, from Panda Software's free browser-based anti-virus scan to Spybot for spyware removal.

The only trend ISP-Planet sees is that companies are no longer specializing. Symantec may be the paradigm here, as its massive client software provides ever more services (the company just bought TurnTide, one of the few unique and effective anti-spam solutions available).

We expect more consolidation in the services area—for ISPs, consolidation may translate into lower prices, more features, and more competition, as the pool of companies providing any single piece of the puzzle (such as anti-spam or anti-spyware) grows rapidly.

—End