Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line. Dial-up connections use modems to decode audio signals into data to send to a router or computer, and to encode signals from the latter two devices to send to another modem at the ISP.
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.
Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.
Pipex was the United Kingdom's first commercial Internet service provider (ISP). It was formed in 1990 and helped to develop the ISP market in the UK. In 1992 it began operating a 64k transatlantic leased line and built a connection to the UK government's JANET network. One of its first customers was Demon Internet which popularised dial up modem based internet access in the UK. It was also one of the key players in the development of the London Internet Exchange through a meeting with BT in 1994.
A wireless Internet service provider (WISP) is an Internet service provider with a network based on wireless networking. Technology may include commonplace Wi-Fi wireless mesh networking, or proprietary equipment designed to operate over open 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 4.9, 5, 24, and 60 GHz bands or licensed frequencies in the UHF band, LMDS, and other bands from 6 GHz to 80 GHz.
Joichi "Joi" Ito is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the President of Chiba Institute of Technology. He is a former director of the MIT Media Lab, former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT, and a former visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Law School. Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage, and Infoseek Japan. Ito is a strategic advisor to Sony Corporation and general partner of Neoteny Labs. Ito wrote a monthly column in the Ideas section of Wired.
SK Broadband, Inc. KRX: 033630, formerly known as Hanaro Telecom, is a Seoul-based telecommunications company and a wholly owned subsidiary of SK Telecom. It is one of the largest broadband Internet access providers in South Korea. Until its takeover in 2008, Hanaro controlled nearly half of the Korean landline market, as it was the only last mile-competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) other than the state-owned KT Corp. SK Broadband also has a division known as "Broad &" that controls a large portion of the South Korean calling card market.
Cable & Wireless plc was a British telecommunications company. In the mid-1980s, it became the first company in the UK to offer an alternative telephone service to British Telecom. The company later offered cable TV to its customers, but it sold its cable assets to NTL in 2000. It remained a significant player in the UK telecoms market and in certain overseas markets, especially in the former British colonies of the Caribbean, where it was formerly the monopoly incumbent. It was also the main supplier of communication in the British South Atlantic, including Saint Helena and the Falkland Islands. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Rakuten Group, Inc. (楽天グループ株式会社) is a Japanese technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around the online retail marketplace Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing fintech, digital content and communications services such as the messaging app Viber, e-book distributor Kobo, and Japan's fourth mobile carrier Rakuten Mobile. Rakuten has more than 28,000 employees worldwide, operating in 30 countries and regions, and its revenues totalling US $12.8 billion as of 2021. Rakuten was the official sponsor of the Spanish football club FC Barcelona from 2017 until 2021, and the Golden State Warriors of the NBA as of 2022. It is often referred to as the "Amazon of Japan".
Hathway Cable & Datacom Ltd, formerly BITV Cable Networks, is an Indian cable television service operator based in Mumbai. It was the first company to provide Internet using the CATV network in India, and the first cable operator to launch a digital platform in 2006. Hathway Broadband Internet was the first cable ISP in India. Business India Television (BITV) Cable Networks Pvt Ltd was acquired by Hathway in 1999. As of 2007, the company had a 51% stake in Bhupendran Bhaskar Multinet and 50% stake in Gujarat Telelinks Pvt Ltd (GTPL). In 2011, Hathway GTPL entered in Assam with a MoM with V&S Cable Pvt Ltd, and started operations in West Bengal as they acquired KCBPL to create a subsidiary, GTPLKCBPL, responsible for providing services in West Bengal.
Exodus Communications, the world's largest web hosting provider at the time, was a data center provider that provided retail and commercial server colocation and was an Internet service provider to dot-com businesses. Exodus went public in 1998 amid massive business growth and achieved a peak market value of approximately $32 billion US dollars in 2000. Along with many of its customers, Exodus experienced the bursting of the dot-com bubble and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2001. Exodus was purchased by Cable and Wireless.
Clearwire Corporation was a telecommunications operator which provided mobile and fixed wireless broadband communications services to retail and wholesale customers in the United States, Belgium, Ireland and Spain. Clearwire traces its roots to 1998, when Sierra Technologies, Inc., spun off certain assets to form a new company, Clearwire Technologies Inc. In October 2003, Craig McCaw purchased Clearwire Technologies, Inc. parent company Clearwire Holdings and moved the company headquarters to Kirkland, Washington. In 2012, Clearwire moved the company headquarters to Bellevue, Washington.
TWICS was a Japanese Internet Service Provider and online community. It was started in 1982 as a part of the non-profit International Education Center in Tokyo. Between 1982 and 1993, TWICS focused on their online community. Howard Rheingold wrote about their diverse international online community in his book, The Virtual Community. Joi Ito contributed ideas that led to the growth of the community, both as a teenager and later as president of PSINet Japan. Prior to TWICS offering public access Internet, Jeff Shapard led the company and developed the foundation for the community .
Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.
The Internet in the United States grew out of the ARPANET, a network sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense during the 1960s. The Internet in the United States in turn provided the foundation for the worldwide Internet of today.
Sonic is a telecommunications company and internet service provider based in Santa Rosa, California, acting as a competitive local exchange carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.
The Japanese mobile phone industry is one of the most advanced in the world. As of March, 2022 there were 199.99 million mobile contracts in Japan according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. This is 158 percent of Japan's total population.
Net bias is the counter-principle to net neutrality, which indicates differentiation or discrimination of price and the quality of content or applications on the Internet by ISPs. Similar terms include data discrimination, digital redlining, and network management.
Tsuyoshi Yoda is a Japanese professional baseball player and manager. He managed of the Chunichi Dragons in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) between 2019 and 2021.
Yoshikimono is a kimono fashion brand created by Japanese rock musician Yoshiki. After its debut at Asia Girls Explosion in 2011, the brand has been featured as a headliner presentation at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo 2016, Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo 2017, and Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo 2020, receiving critical acclaim for its modern approach to Japan's traditional garment.
