Value-added ISPs: when the Net is not enough

For ISPs it is no longer enough to simply connect businesses to the Internet. Web hosting is just one of many services they are offering in a bid to differentiate themselves and - to borrow the language of such companies - 'add value' for their customers.

One ISP took the notion one step further. In March this year, Star Internet launched into the business market with a service that scanned a customers emails for viruses. But six months later it decided to spin off the virus service as a separate business and is now looking for other ISPs to partner with. Mark Sunner, technical director at the newly created Starlabs, explained: "We had so many calls from customers wanting to outsource this that we thought we should do something about it."

Starlabs uses a Control Tower comprising of 24 mail servers and three anti-virus packages - McAfee Total Virus Defence, Datafellows F-Secure and vfind from Cybersoft. It updates its scanners every ten minutes to ensure new strains don't slip through the net. And the service costs the customer just £1.

The first ISP to sign up is UUNET and within weeks already had a customer - The British Oxygen Company (BOC). BOC now has 18,000 users covered by StarLab's virus control centre. And in just the first few weeks it has prevented more than 90 viruses, including Prilissa and Explore.zip, from entering the company's network.

Kevin Fitzsimmons, network service planning manager, at BOC claims he has already seen time and cost benefits. "Viruses have a considerable effect on help desk personnel fielding additional calls, infrastructure staff assisting in inoculation and on the users. This has been alleviated now because of the external virus scanning and has freed staff time to deal with other issues," he argued.

And Fitzsimmons believes many businesses could save money. "If a company has multiple Internet access links and STMP gateways outsourcing the virus scanning can cost-justify immediately when compared to multiple inhouse servers running specialised SMTP virus scanning software."

So is this the way forward for ISPs? John Beaumont, MD of Planet Online, which along with PSINet, Orange.net and BT, is also expected to endorse Starlab's service, believes it is.

"Just offering Internet access is dead. ISPs will have to differentiate themselves as organisations otherwise they will be dead in the water," he warned. Virus protection, he said will become one of a number of value-add services ISPs will be able to offer in the future.

UUNET is aiming the service at its corporate, leased-line customers but Starlabs believes it could just as easily be offered through Freeserve as a value-added service to protect its subscriber's home computers. "There are certain companies that are at greater risk from viruses - those who have a lot of mobile workers or recruitment companies and academic institutions because they receive more emails from home accounts," Sunner commented.

But it doesn't stop there. Star Internet customers who already use the service range from small companies who don't want the worry or the expense of setting up virus protection internally, to large corporations who have such enormous numbers of emails entering the network each day that they want the added protection

Jos White, marketing director at Starlabs, sees a time when all virus security could be outsourced: "ISPs will become ASPs and virus scanning is just one of the many services ISPs will offer their customers in the future." Early next year, Starlabs plans to launch a spam control service, an email archive service and eventually a pornography filter.

But there are problems. Deri Jones of NTA Monitor, warned: "The issue of safety will be a concern for many businesses because Starlabs would have to store the email in order to virus check it and that could pose serious security issues." Also, Jones added, viruses don't only enter a corporate network through email and so a service like this would have to be used in conjunction with other virus protection methods which "would mean businesses won't get the huge cost savings that make it an attractive offering".

Despite these concerns and those of Planet Online's Beaumont who wonders whether IT managers can justify paying £1 per user, Starlab has demonstrated that stage two of ISP development is well under way.