Business classification:

• Internet Service Provider, an organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services.
• Independent Solutions Provider, provides solutions associated with a product or a final service to the client
• Integrated Service Provider, a for-hire firm that performs a variety of logistics service activities

Professional designation:

• Information Systems Professional, an Information Technology title and post-nominal. Proper usage is "I.S.P."
• International Staging Professional, an interior redesign title granted by unaccredited organization

Organization: Incorporated Society of Planters

• Islip/Long Island MacArthur Airport, ISP being the IATA Airport Code for it
• Illinois State Police, Law enforcement agencies across Illinois
• Indiana State Police, Law enforcement agency of Indiana
• The Invisibl Skratch Piklz, a pioneering group of turntable artists in the early 1990s
• International School of Paris, A multicultural school situated a couple minutes away from the Eiffel Tower
• Institute of Sales Promotion, a UK organisation
• Instituto Superior Politécnico, a university in São Tomé and Príncipe
• Independent Socialist Party
• Integrated science program, an honors program at Northwestern University
• ISP Sports, a marketing company which operates several college sports radio broadcast networks
• Information Society Project at Yale Law School
• International Streptomyces Project
• International Shipping Partners, a passenger ship management company based in Miami, Florida

Other:

• Incorporated Society of Planters
• In-System Programming, a way to configure programmable logic devices while they are installed in a larger system
• Specific impulse, represented by I_sp, term used to describe rocket thrust
• Information Support Plan, from the Defense Acquisition Guidebook
• Islip railway station, England; Network Rail station code ISP.
• Interoperability Specifications Pledge

ISPs may provide Internet e-mail accounts to users which allow them to communicate with one another by sending and receiving electronic messages through their ISPs' servers. ISPs may provide other services such as remotely storing data files on behalf of their customers, as well as other services unique to each particular ISP.

History

End-User-to-ISP Connection

For home users and small businesses, the most popular options include dial-up, DSL (typically Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, ADSL), broadband wireless, cable modem, fiber to the premises (FTTH), and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) (typically basic rate interface (BRI).

For customers with more demanding requirements, such as medium-to-large businesses, or other ISPs, DSL (often SHDSL or ADSL), Ethernet, Metro Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Frame Relay, ISDN (BRI or PRI), ATM, satellite Internet access and synchronous optical networking (SONET) are more likely to be used.

With the increasing popularity of downloading music and online video and the general demand for faster page loads, higher bandwidth connections are becoming more popular. Typical home user connection

• DSL
• Broadband wireless access
• Cable modem
• FTTH
• ISDN Typical business type connection
• DSL
• SHDSL
• Ethernet technologies

When using a dial-up or ISDN connection method, the ISP cannot determine the caller's physical location to more detail than using the number transmitted using an appropriate form of Caller ID; it is entirely possible to e.g. connect to an ISP located in Mexico from the U.S. Other means of connection such as cable or DSL require a fixed registered connection node, usually associated at the ISP with a physical address.

ISP Interconnection

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.

Peering

ISPs requiring no upstream and having only customers (end customers and/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.

Virtual ISP

There are various models for the delivery of this type of service. The vISP can provide network (internet) access to end users via access nodes owned by the wholesale ISP (e.g. dial-up modem PoPs or DSLAMs installed in telephone exchanges), routing network traffic itself to its destination. In another model, the vISP does not route any end user traffic, and needs only to provide AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) functions, and may additionally provide "value-add" services like email or web hosting using its own facilities.

The service provided by a wholesale ISP in a vISP model is distinct from that of an upstream ISP, in that a vISP in most cases only provides a means of connection for the customer with an actual backbone/upstream ISP handling the routing and transmission of data, while a wholesale ISP handles both in one case; they may however be one and the same company or strongly affiliated, with the vISP being the customer front-end, while the actual backbone provider is a subsidiary or affiliation.

A vISP can also refer to a completely automated white label service offered to anyone at no cost or for a minimal set-up fee. The actual ISP providing the service generates revenue from customers using the service, and may also share a percentage of that revenue with the owner of the vISP. All technical aspects are dealt with by the ISP providing the infrastructure, thus leaving the owner of the vISP operation with the task of promoting the service. This sort of service is however declining due to the popularity of unmetered internet access also known as flatrate.

Related services

• Broadband Internet access
• Fixed wireless access
• Cable
• Triple play
• Internet hosting service
• Web hosting service
• E-mail hosting service
• DNS hosting service
• Dynamic DNS

See also

• Free-net
• Internet backbone
• Network access point
• Wireless internet service provider

References