ISP stands for Internet Service Provider which is a term used to refer to a company that provides internet access to people who pay the company or subscribe to the company for the same. For their services, the customers have to pay the internet service provider a nominal fee which varies according to the amount of data they actually use or the data plan which they purchase. An Internet Service Provider is also known as an Internet Access Provider or an online service provider. An Internet Service Provider is a must if one wants to connect to the internet.
History
The first Internet Service Provider was Telenet. Telenet was the commercialized version of the ARPANET – a precursor to the internet, of sorts. Telenet was introduced in 1974. Since then, many Internet Service Providers have entered the scene and this was partly because of the proliferation of the internet as a commodity that fuelled the consumerist attitude of the people. Pretty soon, an Internet Service Provider called “The World” came to be in vogue and ever since it started serving its customers today in 1989 has cemented itself as the first archetypal Internet Service Provider. Examples of major Internet Service Providers include Google Fiber, Verizon, Jio, AT&T etc.
Characteristics
- E-mail Account: Many Internet Service Providers offer an e-mail address to their consumers.
- User Support: Professionals and an increasing number of lay users prefer an ISP that can provide them with customer support so that they have someone they can refer to if things go awry.
- Access to high-speed internet: Probably the most obvious item on this list as this feature of an Internet Service Provider lies literally in its name. Furthermore, the higher the speed an Internet Service Provider can offer one, the better it’s standing in the market and the more customers it can attract.
- Spam Blocker: An Internet Service Provider that hinders its customers’ productivity by way of not blocking spam and displaying frequent ads is not something that is generally favoured in the market today. Therefore, many of the Internet Service Providers offer spam blocking features to their customers.
- Web Hosting: Some of the ISPs offer web hosting services to their clientele as well.
Different types of ISP connections
- DSL
- Wi-Fi broadband
- mobile broadband
- fibre optic broadband
- cable broadband
List of ISP
- Reliance Jio
- Vodafone Idea
- Airtel
- BSNL
- Hathway
Advantages
- The customer need not then bother with either the technicalities or finances of investing and inventing a web browser to work with. An ISP can readily do all of this for its customers.
- Many ISPs, being professional companies, provide its clientele with high-speed internet and that is not possible if one decides to sidesteps these companies.
- ISPs offer a very high degree of reliability and availability
- The ISPs are secure – they offer a tremendous deal of protection against viruses and use only the latest software patches whilst operating and thereby, maintaining the integrity of the browser.
- User do not need to invest in user’s own web server.
- ISP’s should give the best uptime guarantee.
Disadvantages
- Because of the range of options available in the market and due to cut-throat competition, some of the ISPs have been accused of violating the customers’ trust by way of inflated pricing, data losses, etc. It is true that using an ISP makes the customer entirely dependent on it.
- If an Internet Service Provider is stretched thin because of hosting too many sites on a shared server, it can compromise the quality of the customers’ data by way of slow download rates and poor performance of websites.
- User need to trust user’s ISP for uptime and security.
- ISP can directly affect user if the it gets blacklisted.