[clue-tech] DSL providers

[William]

Jed S. Baer wrote:
> Suppose it depends upon what you mean by "ISP". You know, most people
> think that the little box they have for Comcast or DSL is a modem. Well,
> for the marketing dweebs, I suppose it was easier to just keep using the
> term "modem", rather than try to sell people routers and/or bridges and
> hubs and/or switches.
>   
Being a computer science major in college (yes, including heavy 
network/internetworking coverage) and an assistant network administrator 
of many years (also including many years of running a complex home 
network), I'll help filter out some of that language gap with a few 
simple definitions for the purpose of further exploring this 
conversation thread:

1. ISP (Internet Service Provider):  A commercial entity that provides 
Internet access to end-users by way of providing a path to the Internet 
backbone (potentially through various up-stream providers that may exist 
between the end-user's ISP and the Tier 1 "backbone" ISPs).  An ISP 
minimally provides IP service (TCP & UDP) to consumer computers over any 
of several types of links (Cable/HFC, DSL, traditional modem, Wi-Fi, 
etc.).  In the business interest of providing greater service to 
end-users, ISPs often also provide Internet application hosting services 
(see the next definition).

2. Hosting Company (AKA Hosting Service Provider):  An entity that 
provides Internet-based application services to end-users including 
HTTP, SMTP, FTP, NNTP, DNS, etc.  Hosting Companies usually provide 
little more than Web and e-mail service to clients, though larger 
Hosting Companies provide much more; sometimes allowing clients to host 
their own Internet servers on the Hosting Company's network (i.e.:  
co-location services).  As mentioned previously, many ISPs also provide 
Hosting services to their users, often leading to some confusion about 
the distinction between these two types of business.

Examples:
1.)  FRII is both an ISP and a Hosting Service Provider.
2.)  GoDaddy is a Hosting Service Provider, but is NOT an ISP.
3.)  I can't, off-hand, think of any ISP that is not also a Hosting 
Service Provider -- it is usually more profitable for ISPs to be both.

Given these definitions, are you saying that you no longer need a 
Hosting Company, but you recognize that you must have an ISP to continue 
to have Internet access?  If this is the case, then your generic usage 
of the term, ISP, caused confusion that led to an unwarranted retort 
from me (Feeling a need to assert -- hoping to prevent you from making 
an embarrassing mistake -- that "someone" has to give you a routable IP 
address and an Internet gateway in order for you to "see" _anything_ 
outside your home network).  If, in fact, you continue to believe that 
you do not need an ISP to access the Internet, then I truly hope you'll 
read this message and learn not to make that mistake before you try it.  :)


-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.