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 Rules and General Information
  


The ISPAs Rules and General information

  • 17 awards will be presented in February 2008, as outlined on www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • The awards are split into two divisions – ISP and Special Awards. Different rules and procedures govern each section. 
  • The 17 awards will be judged according to the criteria for each category published at www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Companies and organisations may be shortlisted for more than one award. 
  • Companies cannot be shortlisted for an award they have sponsored. 
  • Following confirmation by the judges, ISPA Council and the IWF, the shortlists for each award will be published prior to the Awards ceremony. The ISPA Secretariat will contact companies that have been short-listed. 
  • Once the shortlist is published by ISPA, companies that have made the shortlist may publicise this fact (including using the official ISPA logos) but can only do so under licence from ISPA.
  • Copies of the licence are available on request and will be provided to each nominee.  On nomination, nominees must decide whether they wish to pay the licence fee and use the ISPA trade marks (including official ISPA logo) to publicise their nomination.  
  • The winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony in February 2008 and not before. 
  • Winners may publicise that they are a winner of an ISPA Award (including using the official ISPA logos) but can  only do so under licence from ISPA.
  • Copies of the licence are available on request before the Awards ceremony, and will be provided to each winner after the Awards Ceremony.  At this point, winners must decide whether they wish to pay the licence fee and use the ISPA trade marks (including official ISPA logo) to publicise their award.
  • The assessment criteria for each category can be found on www.ispaawards.org.uk.
  • The value added forms, submitted by entrants to support their entry, has a 1,000 character limit (not including spaces) in each criteria.
  • No entrant shall engage in any activity that may damage the integrity of The ISPAs scheme or ceremony. Any such actions shall be raised with the ISPA Council who will take any decision on disqualification. The ISPA Council's decision with respect to disqualification is final. 

ISP Division 

  • Epitiro will conduct an analysis of the services offered by the entrants in the access and hosting categories of the ISP division. 
  • ISPs must register their intent to enter the awards and register their services and other requested information with Epitiro via the online form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. Registration with Epitiro opens in June 2007 and will close on the 3rd September 2007. 
  • ISPs must register their technical details with Epitiro via the online form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. Technical registration will opens on the 3rd September 2007 and will close on the 1st October 2007.
  • Companies wishing to be considered for a particular award should submit the relevant information in accordance with the instructions on www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants must have monitoring equipment configured and running correctly by 1st October 2007, when monitoring is due to begin.
  • Entrants may only enter one service in each category. 
  • Entrants for the Best Business ISP category and the Best Consumer ISP category must serve over 250,000 ‘seats’ where a seat is a person using an Internet connection provided by the entrant. 
  • Entrants will be required to submit supporting information demonstrating how they meet the criteria. All supporting information must be submitted via the online forms at www.ispaawards.org.uk by the 26th November 2007. 
  • On conclusion of the testing period Epitiro's data will be used to select the shortlists. This data may face independent analysis prior to selection of the finalists in each category. The number of entrants to be included in the shortlists will be determined by the ISPA Secretariat. A report will be produced by Epitiro for consideration by the panel of judges. 
  • Where relevant, emphasis in the assessment and evaluation of Epitiro's data will be placed on availability/uptime and how closely the service performance comes to the potential performance of the connection (the ratio of “through put” by “line rate” for each entrant’s line). 
  • Entrants will be required to provide line rate details for ISP Division categories entered. 
  • ISPA reserves the right to request further information about the service and technical specifications provided by entrants and to conduct spot checks if deemed necessary. 
  • An independent judging panel composed of knowledgeable observers of the ISP sector will assess the nominees in the ISP Division and choose the winners in each category. 
  • Entrants will not have access to their performance data during the monitoring process. 
  • It is entrants’ responsibility to return all Epitiro hardware and software when the monitoring period ends. 
  • If it becomes apparent that an entrant is employing what may be considered dubious tactics or attempting to tamper with the monitoring procedure they will be disqualified from the awards process. Any such activity will be raised with the ISPA Council who will take any decision on disqualification. The ISPA Council's decision with respect to disqualification will be final. 

Best Dial-Up ISP and the narrowband criteria of Best Consumer ISP and Best Business ISP 

  • Entrants must register their services and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants must provide a dedicated phone line, and a PC and modem that will monitor their metered or unmetered narrowband dial-up Internet services. 
  • The designated technical and marketing contacts must be available during the set-up and monitoring phase of the awards to deal with any problems and to liase with Epitiro. Failure to assist in the process may render the entrant's registration null and void. 
  • As part of the registration process the entrant will agree to provide Epitiro with the relevant account on the following basis: 
    • "Anytime " accounts - free of charge i.e. the monthly subscription fee will be waived. 
    • "PAYG" accounts – free of charge i.e. the entrant will arrange to receive the bill and pay directly for the calls made to the local rate number by Epitiro. 

Best Consumer and Business Broadband categories and the broadband criteria of Best Consumer ISP and Best Business ISP 

  • Entrants must register their services and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants must provide a dedicated phone line, and a PC and modem that will monitor their Internet access services. The PC and modem must meet the specifications outlined by Epitiro. 
  • Entrants to the Best Consumer and Best Business ISP categories must enter the relevant services in each of the Best Broadband, Best Hosting and the Best Dial-up categories. 
  • The designated technical and marketing contacts must be available during the monitoring and set-up phase. Failure to assist in the process may render the entrant's registration null and void. 
  • As part of the registration process the entrant will agree to provide Epitiro with a broadband account on the following basis: 
    • An appropriate modem will be provided by the entrant. 
    • An appropriate PC will be provided by the entrant.
    • The entrant will provide and operate an appropriate connection (whether fixed or wireless) and an appropriate broadband account free of charge (i.e. no monthly subscription). 

Best Shared and Dedicated Hosting and hosting criteria in Best Business ISP and Best Consumer ISP 

  • Entrants must register their services and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants must be an ISP or a company offering mass web site hosting to customers. 
  • Entrants for Best Shared and Dedicated hosting will be given a file that they will place on a shared or dedicated server dependent on the award category entered.
  • Entrants will be given a file that  they will place on a shared hosting server for the hosting criteria in Best Business ISP and Best Consumer ISP.
  • Epitiro will then configure a satellite to periodically download this file in order to measure availability and non-cached download speed. 
  • At the end of the monitoring period the availability percentage and average download speeds will be calculated. 

Best Wireless ISP

  • Entrants must register their services and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk.
  • Entrants must provide a dedicated wireless connection, and a PC and modem that will monitor their wireless Internet services.
  • The designated technical and marketing contacts must be available during the monitoring and set-up phase. Failure to assist in the process may render the entrant's registration null and void. 
  • As part of the registration process the entrant will agree to provide Epitiro with a wireless account on the following basis: 
    • The entrant will provide appropriate hardware.
    • The entrant will provide and operate an appropriate connection and an appropriate broadband account free of charge (i.e. no monthly subscription). 

Best Streaming

  • Entrants must register their service and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants must be an ISP or a company offering media streaming services to customers. 
  • Entrants will be given either a Windows Media or Real Media file that they will place on their media streaming servers.  Entrants will be required to state the file type during the technical service registration process.
  • Epitiro will then configure a satellite to periodically stream from the file in order to measure availability, start-up time, non-playing time, rebuffering time, the percentage bandwidth used by the player compared against the bandwidth at which the feed was encoded, packet loss, packet out of order and non-cached download speed. 

Best Portal 

  • Entrants must register their service and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants to the Best Portal category must be ISPs offering content portals. 
  • Entered portals will be assessed using an automated website testing solution. 
  • Finalists will be selected on availability and speed of access to content. 
  • The ISP Division judging panel will then assess the portals in relation to the criteria set out on www.ispaawards.org.uk. 

Best Business and Consumer Email

  • To enter an Email category, entrants must also enter one of the Internet access award categories.
  • Entrants must register their service and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 
  • Entrants to the Best Business and Consumer Email categories must be ISPs offering email services.
  • Entrants will be judged on a round trip of email within the ISP’s network.
  • Epitiro will measure the speed of the email’s round trip, smtp failures and pop3 (or equivalent) failures 
  • At the end of the monitoring period the speed of a round-trip email and incidence of email failure will be calculated.

Best Internet Telephony

  • Only SIP based voice services can be entered into this category.
  • Entrants must register their service and other requested information for the appropriate award(s) via the registration form linked to from www.ispaawards.org.uk. 

Special Awards Division 

  • The 2008 ISPAs’ Award for Corporate Social Responsibility shortlist and eventual winner will be selected by the ISP Division judging panel. Only ISPs entered into the Best Business ISP and Best Consumer ISP categories at The 2008 ISPAs are able to be considered.
  • The Internet Hero and Internet Villain Awards shortlists and eventual winners will be selected by the ISPA Council. 

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) Award shortlist and eventual winner will be selected by the IWF.

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