A company I know that provided webhosting and dialup ISP service just revealed that their provider is Ikano.

See
http://www.ikano.com

They're one of these technology infrastructure companies that will provide fully branded private label ISP services.

I resell webhosting and I've also been offering a few dialup accounts to my clients that I buy wholesale from another provider.

Seems like Ikano provides ISP services just like

http://www.virtualisp.com/

but adds full customer support, too. Looks like Ikano is probably very expensive too.

Anyone hear of these guys - Ikano or VirtualISP? Any feedback on these kind of providers? Anyone use them or any other similar providers? Can you recommend a company that provides these services?

We've had discussions on providing dialup ISP services to our clients before and the problem, it seems, is this kind of business really eats up a lot of tech support. If I were to offer dialup ISP services I'd rather get it bundled with tech support from a provider like Ikano.

Anyone offer dialup ISP? Who do you buy your accounts from? Is offering dialup ISP servicecs too much of a hassle?

Thanks in advance,

Sean

many people offer dialup accounts in the UK for free, based upon a local rate charge for customers and all tech support is charged at £1 per minute, meaning that people tend to try other ways of solving the problem before calling you.

Im not sure how it all works with Dialup accounts in the USA etc...

Sean,

We use www.cari.net. They have two (soon three) levels of dial up. California numbers are $5/mo and National are $10/mo (new national will be $7.50/mo). You will need to provide support. However they have stated they will soon offer unbranded support for dial up.

With Ikano, you actually pay for the unbranded support. While their management interface and tools are very nice, they are expensive. Plus they had a huge set up fee when we looked at them a year go.

Is offering dialup ISP servicecs too much of a hassle?

Yes and no. :stickout

Yes -
1) You really need phone support.
2) When the network is having routing or outages, the calls flood in.
3) You will get that one elderly woman who can not connect. We have numerous 2 hour calls logged for dial up support!

NO -
1) Adds value over what most web host offer.
2) Makes services sticky. We get people who buy our dial up/hosting package and then quite dial up a few months later. We still host the sites.
3) With the a well documented support section and easy set up software, dial up can be easier to manage then one might think.

If you have any other questions, just PM me.

dialupusa(virtualisp.com) offers unbranded tech support as well.

One question that has not been addressed is "what happens if companies like these go out of business?", "Where does that leave you and your dial-up customers?"

What happens when any compnay goes out of business? That is the nature of the beast. Any good company will have a back up plan.