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An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned,
non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
, or otherwise privately owned. Internet services typically provided by ISPs can include
Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Interne ...
, Internet transit, domain name registration, web hosting,
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
service, and colocation. An ISP typically serves as the access point or the gateway that provides a user access to everything available on the Internet. Such a network can also be called as an eyeball network.


History

The Internet (originally
ARPAnet The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
) was developed as a network between government research laboratories and participating departments of universities. Other companies and organizations joined by direct connection to the backbone, or by arrangements through other connected companies, sometimes using dialup tools such as UUCP. By the late 1980s, a process was set in place towards public, commercial use of the Internet. Some restrictions were removed by 1991, shortly after the introduction of the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
. During the 1980s, online service providers such as CompuServe and
America On Line AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...
(AOL) began to offer limited capabilities to access the Internet, such as e-mail interchange, but full access to the Internet was not readily available to the general public. In 1989, the first Internet service providers, companies offering the public direct access to the Internet for a monthly fee, were established in Australia and the United States. In Brookline, Massachusetts,
The World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
became the first commercial ISP in the US. Its first customer was served in November 1989. These companies generally offered dial-up connections, using the public telephone network to provide last-mile connections to their customers. The barriers to entry for dial-up ISPs were low and many providers emerged. However, cable television companies and the telephone carriers already had wired connections to their customers and could offer Internet connections at much higher speeds than dial-up using
broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...
technology such as cable modems and
digital subscriber line Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...
(DSL). As a result, these companies often became the dominant ISPs in their service areas, and what was once a highly competitive ISP market became effectively a monopoly or duopoly in countries with a commercial telecommunications market, such as the United States. In 1995, NSFNET was decommissioned removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic and network access points were created to allow peering arrangements between commercial ISPs.


Net neutrality

On 23 April 2014, the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) was reported to be considering a new rule permitting ISPs to offer content providers a faster track to send content, thus reversing their earlier net neutrality position. A possible solution to net neutrality concerns may be municipal broadband, according to Professor Susan Crawford, a legal and technology expert at
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each c ...
. On 15 May 2014, the FCC decided to consider two options regarding Internet services: first, permit fast and slow broadband lanes, thereby compromising net neutrality; and second, reclassify broadband as a
telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...
service, thereby preserving net neutrality. On 10 November 2014, President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
recommended that the FCC reclassify broadband Internet service as a telecommunications service in order to preserve net neutrality. On 16 January 2015, Republicans presented legislation, in the form of a U.S. Congress
H.R. Paul D. Hudson (born February 11, 1956), known professionally as H.R. (Human Rights), is an American musician who leads the hardcore punk band Bad Brains, and is an instrumental figure in the development of the genre. His vocal delivery has b ...
discussion draft bill, that makes concessions to net neutrality but prohibits the FCC from accomplishing the goal or enacting any further regulation affecting Internet service providers. On 31 January 2015, AP News reported that the FCC will present the notion of applying ("with some caveats") Title II (common carrier) of the
Communications Act of 1934 The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934 and codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, et seq. The Act replaced the Federal Radio Commission wit ...
to the Internet in a vote expected on 26 February 2015. Adoption of this notion would reclassify Internet service from one of information to one of the
telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...
and, according to
Tom Wheeler Thomas Edgar Wheeler (born April 5, 1946) is an American businessman and former government official. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He was appointed by President Bar ...
, chairman of the FCC, ensure net neutrality. The FCC was expected to enforce net neutrality in its vote, according to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. On 26 February 2015, the FCC ruled in favor of net neutrality by adopting Title II (common carrier) of the
Communications Act of 1934 The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934 and codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, et seq. The Act replaced the Federal Radio Commission wit ...
and Section 706 in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to the Internet. The FCC Chairman,
Tom Wheeler Thomas Edgar Wheeler (born April 5, 1946) is an American businessman and former government official. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He was appointed by President Bar ...
, commented, "This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concept." On 12 March 2015, the FCC released the specific details of the net neutrality rules. On 13 April 2015, the FCC published the final rule on its new " Net Neutrality" regulations. These rules went into effect on 12 June 2015. Upon becoming FCC chairman in April 2017, Ajit Pai proposed an end to net neutrality, awaiting votes from the commission. On 21 November 2017, Pai announced that a vote will be held by FCC members on 14 December 2017 on whether to repeal the policy. On 11 June 2018, the repeal of the FCC's network neutrality rules took effect.


Provisions for low-income families

Most ISPs offer discounts to low-income families, with internet service available for as little as $10 a month. Eligibility for these programs usually requires documentation of enrollment in a government assistance program such as the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program In the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal program that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people. It is a federal aid program, ad ...
(SNAP).


Classifications


Access providers

Access provider ISPs provide Internet access, employing a range of technologies to connect users to their network. Available technologies have ranged from computer modems with acoustic couplers to telephone lines, to television cable (CATV),
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...
, and fiber optics. For users and small businesses, traditional options include copper wires to provide dial-up, DSL, typically
asymmetric digital subscriber line Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...
(ADSL), cable modem or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) (typically basic rate interface). Using fiber-optics to end users is called
Fiber To The Home Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic ...
or similar names. Customers with more demanding requirements (such as medium-to-large businesses, or other ISPs) can use higher-speed DSL (such as
single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line Single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line (SHDSL) is a form of symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL), a data communications technology for equal transmit and receive (i.e. symmetric) data rate over copper telephone lines, faster than a conv ...
),
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...
, metropolitan Ethernet,
gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use ...
, Frame Relay, ISDN Primary Rate Interface, ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and synchronous optical networking (SONET). Wireless access is another option, including cellular and satellite Internet access.


Mailbox providers

A mailbox provider is an organization that provides services for hosting electronic mail domains with access to storage for mail boxes. It provides email servers to send, receive, accept, and store email for end users or other organizations. Many mailbox providers are also access providers, while others are not (e.g., Gmail,
Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yahoo! ...
,
Outlook.com Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith as Hotmail, it was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 ...
,
AOL Mail AOL Mail (stylized as Aol Mail.) is a free web-based email service provided by AOL, a division of Yahoo. Features AOL Mail has the following features available: * Email attachment limit: 25 MB * Max mailbox size: Unlimited * Supported protoco ...
, Po box). The definition given in RFC 6650 covers
email hosting service An email hosting service is an Internet hosting service that operates email servers. Features Email hosting services usually offer premium email as opposed to advertisement-supported free email or free webmail. Email hosting services thus dif ...
s, as well as the relevant department of companies, universities, organizations, groups, and individuals that manage their mail servers themselves. The task is typically accomplished by implementing Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and possibly providing access to messages through Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), the Post Office Protocol, Webmail, or a proprietary protocol.


Hosting ISPs

Internet hosting services provide email, web-hosting, or online storage services. Other services include virtual server, cloud services, or physical server operation.


Transit ISPs

Just as their customers pay them for Internet access, ISPs themselves pay upstream ISPs for Internet access. An upstream ISP usually has a larger network than the contracting ISP or is able to provide the contracting ISP with access to parts of the Internet the contracting ISP by itself has no access to.Gerson & Ryan A Primer on Internet Exchange Points for Policymakers and Non-Engineers
Working Paper, August 11, 2012
In the simplest case, a single connection is established to an upstream ISP and is used to transmit data to or from areas of the Internet beyond the home network; this mode of interconnection is often cascaded multiple times until reaching a tier 1 carrier. In reality, the situation is often more complex. ISPs with more than one point of presence (PoP) may have separate connections to an upstream ISP at multiple PoPs, or they may be customers of multiple upstream ISPs and may have connections to each one of them at one or more point of presence. Transit ISPs provide large amounts of bandwidth for connecting hosting ISPs and access ISPs.


Virtual ISPs

A virtual ISP (VISP) is an operation that purchases services from another ISP, sometimes called a ''wholesale ISP'' in this context, which allow the VISP's customers to access the Internet using services and infrastructure owned and operated by the wholesale ISP. VISPs resemble
mobile virtual network operator A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobil ...
s and
competitive local exchange carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a "carrier") competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrier ...
s for voice communications.


Free ISPs

Free ISPs are Internet service providers that provide service free of charge. Many free ISPs display advertisements while the user is connected; like commercial
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
, in a sense they are selling the user's attention to the advertiser. Other free ISPs, sometimes called freenets, are run on a nonprofit basis, usually with volunteer staff.


Wireless ISP

A wireless Internet service provider (WISP) is an Internet service provider with a network based on wireless networking. Technology may include commonplace Wi-Fi wireless mesh networking, or proprietary equipment designed to operate over open 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 4.9, 5.2, 5.4, 5.7, and 5.8 GHz bands or licensed frequencies such as 2.5 GHz (EBS/BRS), 3.65 GHz (NN) and in the UHF band (including the MMDS frequency band) and LMDS.


ISPs in rural regions

It is hypothesized that the vast divide between broadband connection in rural and urban areas is partially caused by a lack of competition between ISPs in rural areas, where there exists a market typically controlled by just one provider. A lack of competition problematically causes subscription rates to rise disproportionately with the quality of service in rural areas, causing broadband connection to be unaffordable for some, even when the infrastructure supports service in a given area. In contrast, consumers in urban areas typically benefit from lower rates and higher quality of broadband services, not only due to more advanced infrastructure but also the healthy economic competition caused by having several ISPs in a given area. How the difference in competition levels has potentially negatively affected the innovation and development of infrastructure in specific rural areas remains a question. The exploration and answers developed to the question could provide guidance for possible interventions and solutions meant to remedy the digital divide between rural and urban connectivity.


Peering

ISPs may engage in peering, where multiple ISPs interconnect at
peering point In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the "down-stream" users of each network. Peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-a ...
s or Internet exchange points (IXPs), allowing routing of data between each network, without charging one another for the data transmitted—data that would otherwise have passed through a third upstream ISP, incurring charges from the upstream ISP. ISPs requiring no upstream and having only customers (end customers or peer ISPs) are called Tier 1 ISPs. Network hardware, software and specifications, as well as the expertise of network management personnel are important in ensuring that data follows the most efficient route, and upstream connections work reliably. A tradeoff between cost and efficiency is possible.


Law enforcement and intelligence assistance

Internet service providers in many countries are legally required (e.g., via Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in the U.S.) to allow
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...
agencies to monitor some or all of the information transmitted by the ISP, or even store the browsing history of users to allow government access if needed (e.g. via the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
). Furthermore, in some countries ISPs are subject to monitoring by intelligence agencies. In the U.S., a controversial
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
program known as PRISM provides for broad monitoring of Internet users traffic and has raised concerns about potential violation of the privacy protections in the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge o ...
. Modern ISPs integrate a wide array of
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...
and
packet sniffing A packet analyzer, also known as packet sniffer, protocol analyzer, or network analyzer, is a computer program or computer hardware such as a packet capture appliance, that can intercept and log traffic that passes over a computer network or ...
equipment into their networks, which then feeds the data to law-enforcement/intelligence networks (such as DCSNet in the United States, or
SORM The System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM; russian: Система оперативно-разыскных мероприятий) is the technical specification for lawful interception interfaces of telecommunications and telephone n ...
in Russia) allowing monitoring of Internet traffic in real time.


See also

* Content delivery network * Geo-blocking *
Index of Internet-related articles This page provides an index of articles thought to be Internet or Web related topics. A AARNet - Abilene Network - Access control list - Ad hoc network - Address resolution protocol - ADSL - AirPort - All your base are belong to us - AOL ...
* Internet hosting service *
Network service provider Network Service Provider (NSP) is one of the roles defined in the National Information Infrastructure (NII) plan, which governed the transition of the Internet from US federal control to private-sector governance, with an accompanying shift from th ...
* Outline of the Internet


References


External links

{{Telecommunications