TOP TEN SIGNS YOU PICKED THE WRONG INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER

1. Their company logo: two tin cans and a length of string.

2. You check out their address, and it’s a phone booth containing a Compaq portable and an acoustic coupler.

3. Their chief technical officer lives in a 10-foot-by-7-foot shack in the woods.

4. Their proud boast: “We’ve been on the Internet since it was CB radio.”

5. Their promo materials use the words “information” and “superhighway” in the same sentence.

6. You order an SLIP/PPP connection, email, and 2MB of server space for your personal Web site, and the voice on the other end of the phone asks “Would you like fries with that?”

7. “As seen in Better Business Bureau special reports.”

8. “Access speeds up to 9,600 BPS in most areas.”

9. They hawk both domain names and Rolexes on street corners.

10. They charge by the word.