On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 5:05 PM, Naslund, Steve <SNaslund@medline.com> wrote:
Here we go down the rabbit hole again. This is not difficult. An Internet Service Provider is an entity that provides Internet connectivity to its customers for some consideration.
If you are looking for a legal definition of an ISP you are not going to find (a >satisfactory) one. The FCC does have specific rules that define carriers such as ILEC, CLEC, RLEC, and those have definitions. ISP is really a term that describes a line of business. There is no engineering definition of an ISP that is defined by any regulatory body that I am aware of.
Correct. "ISP" is not a specific technology or business. It is based on what is being sold. You can be selling customers a dial-up service where your customers are presented with a shell prompt over the dial-in terminal connected to a hosted Unix server you are renting with connectivity from a 56K leased line, and you are still an ISP. By common definitions, by the way, Youtube has been referred to as an ISP. An ISP is a company that generates revenue by providing connectivity to internet resources (in this case: streaming video). Usually ISP is used to refer to providers that are selling complete internet connectivity, however, not organizations that merely run one website providing entertainment or e-commerce. You can subdivide the idea of ISP into various related ideas such as "Online Service Provider", "Network Service Provider", "Broadband Service Provider", "E-mail service provider", "Mobile Data Provider", etc Which are more informative, but generally equally vague and informal. -- -JH