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Internet Service Provider, a company
that provides direct connections to the internet. isps form the gateway
between the public telephone network and the internet itself, and make
it possible for anyone with a computer and a modem to gain access to a full
set of internet services. all isps supply subscribers with an e-mail
address. Most provide web-hosting facilities, allowing anyone with a
text-editing program and a smattering of html knowledge to build
their own website. Few kinds of companies have been forced to evolve
as fast as isps. Since their advent in the early 1990s they have had
to cope with massive increases in the numbers of internet users, pornography
and libel issues and drastic changes in technology, not to mention
commercial challenges. Many have not survived, and in its characteristically
democratic way the internet has made life hard for isps. Additional
subscribers are hard to find- or attract from competitors-and so finding new
sources of revenue has become important. This is one reason why isps
such as freeserve have sold out.
IN this kind of market,
differentiating yourself from a competitor is difficult, and it is getting
harder. Bandwidth and consistency of service, the two biggest issues
for subscribers, have levelled out across isps, and customer demands
have become much more sophisticated. No longer satisfied with
pay-by-the-minute dial-up access, many subscribers now demand flat-rate,
unmetered access to internet services as a minimum, which isps must
find a way to subsidise, usually through portals and advertising. Meanwhile,
the rush for always on services such as adsl is forcing isps
to strike deals with telecoms wholesalers and invest in expensive new
technology in order to hold on to their customers. a report by idc, a
research company, estimated that user spending on broadband services will
grow by nearly 13 times between 2001 and 2006, with a corresponding decline
in the number of dial-up connections. |
