Paul's Page of Internet Service Providers
that serve the San Francisco Bay area.This page is slightly different to others that list access providers, since most of these links point to the information about the connectivity services offered (which can be a little buried, sometimes ;-) rather than the home page of the site.
The responsiveness of the user's pages of a given service provider is often a good barometer of the performance you can expect from provider as a customer. Be sure to check real users pages - the ISP may have its own 'front door' pages on a separate server dedicated to that purpose alone, giving you a false impression of the performance.
This page is not one I'm actively maintaining - I'm quite happy with the ISP I selected (Direct Network Access Inc. in Berkeley), so have no incentive to look for alternative providers. Hence I'm not adding new ISPs to this list (just culling the ones that go out of business). I recommend you take a look at the 'Other Lists' section below for lists that are more actively maintained than this one.
Other Lists of Internet Service Providers
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B.J. Herbison's comprehensive & actively-maintained site that points to many other lists that cover North America and much of the rest of the world.
C|net's comparative review of ISPs
THE LIST is a site that catalogs internet service providers. Here's a direct link to the page for the This seems comprehensive, with the important info up front, and a ratings scheme. Probably the best place to start, of the ones I've seen.
Computer Currents (a local free paper) has a list of Internet Service Providers covering the Bay Area. MicroTimes (another free paper) also has one.
SF Bay ISP List
National Service Providers
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Holonet
Hooked
IBM Global Network (Advantis)
Netcom
MindSpring (they've taken on Pipeline USA's customers, too)
PSI.Net
Slip.Net
Surf Communications, Inc. (Specialise in a packaged ISDN solution for Windows)
Bay Area Service Providers
This is only a partial list - I can't keep up with the rate these are starting up...-
Ablecom
Direct Network Access Inc.
Idiom Consulting
InReach Internet is a service provider that covers most of California with local access numbers.
Institute for Global Communication
InterServe Communications
ISP Networks
KudoNet Online Services
LanMinds
NetGate Communications
SCruz-Net
Warp Drive provide high-speed wireless internet access.
WombatNet (specializes in Macintosh)
DSL Access
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NorthPoint Communications - DSL service provider