Do-It-Yourself Ecommerce

In order for homes and businesses to connect to the Internet they need an ISP the same way you need a phone company to connect to the telephone system. There are essentially two types of ISP’s; direct connect and portals.

Let’s use another analogy. Say you live on a dead-end road. The road leads to a city. The city has things to see and do, shops, libraries and businesses, etc. You can spend most or all of your time there but, to get to the rest of the world you have to go through that city.

That’s what a portal is. Like AOL (sometimes known as Almost On Line) or MSN, they provide Internet access, but only through their “city”. It’s your first stop when you go online. They are mostly associated with dial-up connections and have local phone numbers across the country so customers can access the Internet toll-free.

Direct-connection ISP’s allow you to connect directly to the Internet and pretty much stay out of your way. They can be small, local companies or large telecoms or cable companies.