Serious ISP provides a comprehensive wholesale dialup product, complete with a full suite of proprietary value-added services.

by Jeff Goldman [February 11, 2004]

Serious ISP was founded in 1998 to offer a wide range of telecommunications services, specifically targeted at government agencies and non profit institutions. About two years later, the company began providing Internet access to those same customers, and soon added a wholesale offering as well.

Doug LaDuron, Serious ISP's President and CEO, says the wholesale product was initially created in order to help small ISPs compete with larger providers. While Serious ISP still provides ISP services to its non-profit clients, LaDuron says there's no risk of competition. "We don't actively solicit those customers now-but once you've got a customer and they're happy with you, you let them sit there," he says.

Serious ISP	info@seriousisp.com

The company also provides a complete VISP offering. "You can log in through our customer access management panel, and literally set up an ISP in a can," LaDuron says. "Everything is there: the technical support, the email, the billing, the processing, the accounting. It's even got reports that help you make business decisions based on who's on when and what ports they're hitting the most."

Value-added services, LaDuron says, are now crucial to the survival of any small ISP. "Everybody's trying to go for the buck; they want to get on quick, and they want it for as cheap as they can get," he says. "The value adds are what add to your client base. Otherwise, you're just going to lose them to the groups that will get them on for seven dollars."

Proprietary solutions
Serious ISP's available value adds include content filtering, spam and virus filtering, VPN software, and an accelerator. Each is available either as a standalone appliance or as an application hosted by Serious ISP—and each was created in house. "We realized we could either follow the pack or lead the pack," LaDuron says. "The only way to lead is to build the best, and that's we decided to do."

The company's proprietary accelerator works across all types of networks, including dialup, dedicated, and wireless. "It's not just doing your access," LaDuron says. "It's also doing your file downloads—and it works on any attachment, any file, any data transfer. And the client can actually adjust their own acceleration: they can decide if they want super high quality or if they want to get it fast."

Within the next few months, LaDuron says, he plans to run the accelerator throughout Serious ISP's network. "We'll be accelerating all of our client's access, across Level 3, O1, et cetera," he says. "We'll do it across the entire network. If a client doesn't want it, of course, we can always pull them off, because we do it based on realms."

Serious ISP's content filter includes weighted lists of words and phrases to help it stay dynamic. "You need to have control of the content," LaDuron says. "If I just wait to update your blacklist and whitelist at midnight every night, what about all those nice porn stars plugging stuff away after midnight? With ours, the end user gets whitelists, blacklists, words, and phrases; and they can tweak it as hard as they want."

Eight carriers
The company's wholesale dialup offering is built across eight different carriers as well as Serious ISP's own POPs. "You get access across our network," LaDuron says. "You can choose to be on or off any of the networks, as you like, to control your users. We want you to get as much coverage as you want, as quickly as you want."

Serious ISP's proprietary dialer uses push technology to update access numbers as needed. "We give it away free to all of our clients so we can maintain quality of service," LaDuron says. "If we see that somebody's not performing well in a certain area, we can push out new numbers to that area so they can have a higher quality of service."

If a client needs access in an area that Serious ISP doesn't cover, LaDuron says he will usually build out into that area as long as the ROI justifies doing so. "We do that for a lot of people," he says. "We've also been known to switch people from a facilities based ISP to a VISP mode. We buy their stuff, take it over, take over their contracts, and then they go to VISP. We do that often; that's how we keep growing."

Pricing for all of the company's services varies, depending on the specific networks chosen and the combination of services required. A setup fee of $250 and a $250 monthly minimum are standard, though LaDuron says they're often waived.

When choosing a wholesale provider, LaDuron says, the most important thing is to be sure that you feel comfortable with them. "It's not like buying a car that you can get rid of in a couple of years," he says. "You have to know that person will be there to support you. That's what it all boils down to, because you're placing your livelihood in their hands. It's like getting married."

— End

Related articles:
	[Nov. 7, 2003]	Death of Dialup Greatly Exaggerated
	[March 16, 2001]	Va-Va-VISP
	[Nov. 27, 2000]	How to Pick A Wholesale Access Provider

Online resource:
	Wholesale Dialup Directory