An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider, a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup. In its original more limited definition, it referred only to a commercial computer communication service in which paid members could dial via a computer modem the service's private computer network and access various services and information resources such a bulletin boards, downloadable files and programs, news articles, chat rooms, and electronic mail services. The term "online service" was also used in references to these dial-up services. The traditional dial-up online service differed from the modern Internet service provider in that they provided a large degree of content that was only accessible by those who subscribed to the online service, while ISP mostly serves to provide access to the Internet and generally provides little if any exclusive content of its own. In the U.S., the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) portion of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has expanded the legal definition of online service in two different ways for different portions of the law. It states in section 512(k)(1):
(A) As used in subsection (a), the term "service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.
(B) As used in this section, other than subsection (a), the term "service provider" means a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefore, and includes an entity described in subparagraph (A).
Prodigy Communications Corporation was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services, including news, weather, shopping, bulletin boards, games, polls, expert columns, banking, stocks, travel, and a variety of other features.
Oi, formerly known as Telemar, is the largest fixed telephone operator and the fourth mobile telephone operator in Brazil, being the third largest telecommunication company in Latin America. It is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. Oi's major subsidiaries include Telemar and Brasil Telecom.
Nando was an American internet news service and Internet service provider (ISP), founded in 1993 by the publishers of The News & Observer newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina. Initially it relied on access via bulletin board technology. One of the first 24-hour news websites, the Nando Times, was launched in 1994, providing edited information from major news agencies that had not then developed their own websites.
Charter Communications, Inc. is an American telecommunications and mass media company that offers its services to consumers and businesses under the branding of Spectrum. Providing services to over 26 million customers in 41 states, it is the second-largest cable operator in the United States by subscribers, just behind Comcast, and third largest pay TV operator behind Comcast and AT&T. It is the fifth largest telephone provider based upon residential subscriber line count.
NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc. was an Internet service provider headquartered in San Jose, California.
Charles Brewer is an American entrepreneur.
PSINet, based in Northern Virginia, was one of the first commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) and was involved in the commercialization of the Internet until the company's bankruptcy in 2001 during the dot-com bubble and acquisition by Cogent Communications in 2002.
Cricket Wireless LLC, simply known as Cricket Wireless or Cricket, is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc., that provides wireless services to 10 million subscribers in the United States. Cricket Wireless was founded in March 1999 by Leap Wireless International. AT&T acquired Leap Wireless International in March 2014 which merged Cricket Wireless with Aio Wireless. Before AT&T's acquisition, the company had 4.5 million subscribers.
Speakeasy, Inc. was a broadband internet service provider and voice over IP carrier based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Their terms of service described liberal usage policies for home users allowing subscribers to run any number of servers and allowing them to resell their connectivity to others through a service called "NetShare". They received press coverage for their support of Linux and BSD-derivative operating systems, and were reportedly the first provider to offer a customized version of Mozilla Firefox to customers, in January 2005. The company is now part of MegaPath Corporation.
The Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) was an early interexchange point that allowed the free exchange of TCP/IP traffic, including commercial traffic, between ISPs. It was an important initial effort toward creating the commercial Internet that we know today
Mike McQuary ("McQ") is an American entrepreneur. He has founded and led a diverse portfolio of companies.
Web Internet LLC were formed in 1997 as joint ventures between Robert Friedman and Bill Bloomfield, then President of Web Service Company. Mr. Friedman served as Web.com's first CEO. Web Service Company was the second largest coin-operated laundry machine company in the U.S. and held a trademark on the "WEB" brand, resulting in the company's ownership of the Web.com domain. Web.com initially launched as a web portal, offering paid search results, a shopping directory, comparison shopping engine, as well as a free web-based @web.com email service in multiple languages. The Web.com website was first hosted at HostPro, Inc., serving as one of HostPro's premier clients. HostPro CEO Alex Kazerani would later be instrumental in negotiating the acquisition of Web.com as a board member of Interland, Inc.
The Pipeline was one of the earliest American Internet service providers. It was founded in December 1993 in New York City by the science and technology writer James Gleick and computer programmer Uday Ivatury, who had met at the Manhattan Bridge Club and shared an interest in online bridge. Both men believed that a graphical user interface would make the Internet more widely accessible than the command-line Unix commands that were then generally necessary.
Caribe.Net, also known as Critical Hub Networks, is a telecommunications company that provides broadband internet access, data center and telephone services in Puerto Rico. The company is headquartered in San Juan. On April 26, 2010 the company received a $25.7 million federal award from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for the Puerto Rico Bridge Initiative.
EarthLink is an American Internet service provider.
Internet America was an internet service provider that operated in Texas. In 2015, it was acquired by JAB Broadband and folded into Rise Broadband.
Atlantic.Net is an American cloud computing and hosting services provider with data center presence in the United States. Founded in 1994 in Gainesville, Florida as the Internet Connect Company Computers, it is headquartered in Orlando. As of 2012, the company states that it provides colocation, cloud server hosting internationally as a cloud service provider, dedicated servers and managed server hosting.
