5. ISP - Internet Service Provider

ISP stands for 'Internet Service Provider'.

An ISP is a company that provides Internet access. For a monthly fee they will offer you a broadband connection to the Internet. Without this service, most businesses and individuals would not be able to use the Internet.

Often, they provide other services as well such as email, web site building and web site hosting.

The way it works is that your modem at home connects to one of their servers. This will then send and receive internet traffic for you.

ISPs may provide connections at different speeds, from a low 1Mb/s connection to a super fast 50 Mb/s connection and higher. However the usual real limit on speed is the connection from the house to the nearest telephone exchange. Purchasing a faster link than this bottleneck is a waste.

The ISP contract may be an 'unlimited bandwidth' one or will include a monthly data allowance. Cheaper deals offer lower data allowance e.g. 40 Gigabytes per month. This is fine if all you want is some email and a bit of web browsing.

However, if you view catch-up TV such as the BBC iPlayer, then this can quickly be used up. For example a single one hour show is about a Gigabyte. It will not take many programs to run out of data allowance.

Higher data allowance will of course cost more - so it is a balance of how much use will be made of the connection.