Open versus closed networks

IDEA No 11

INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER

An internet service provider (ISP) provides access to the internet in the same way that a telephone company provides access to a telephone network.

In the late ’90s, half of all the CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo on them, and the company was acquiring a new subscriber every six seconds.

After building ARPANET, the first packet-switching network (see The Space Race), BBN Technologies set out to create a private-sector equivalent. In 1975, it launched Telenet. Various organizations paid monthly fees to connect to it, allowing them to send email, chat, share files and access ...

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