California BBS
CalBBS provides information on Lompoc Valley and Internet service providers. To learn more about Internet services, please visit our "Internet" page. For Information on events and news in Lompoc Valley, please visit the events and news pages.
An Internet service provider (ISP), also sometimes alluded to as an Internet access provider (IAP), is a company that provides its customers access to the Internet. The ISP connects to its customers using a data transmission technology appropriate for delivering Internet Protocol Paradigm, such as dial-up, DSL, cable modem, wireless or dedicated high-speed interconnects.
ISPs may provide Internet e-mail accounts to users which allow them to communicate with one another by sending and receiving electronic messages through their ISP's servers. ISPs may provide services such as secludedly storing data files on behalf of their customers, as well as other services one of a kind to each particular ISP.
ISPs employ a plethera of technologies to enable customers to connect to their network.
For users and small businesses, the more popular choises include dial-up, DSL (generally Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, ADSL), broadband wireless, cable modem, fiber to the premises (FTTH), and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) (generally rudimentary rate interface).
For customers with more demanding requirements, such as medium-to-huge businesses, or other ISPs, DSL (usually SHDSL or ADSL), Ethernet, Metro Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Frame Relay, ISDN (BRI or PRI), ATM, satellite Internet access and synchronous optical networking (SONET) are more likely to be used. Just as their customers pay them for Internet access, ISPs themselves pay upstream ISPs for Internet access. An upstream ISP most commonly has a huger network than the contracting ISP and/or is able to provide the contracting ISP with access to parts of the Internet the contracting ISP by itself has no access to.
In the most basic case, a sole connection is created to an upstream ISP and is used to transmit data to or from areas of the Internet beyond the home network; this mode of interconnection is usually cascaded several times until reaching a Tier 1 carrier. Iactuality, the situation is usually more complicated. ISPs with more than one point of presence (PoP) may have separate connections to an upstream ISP at several PoPs, or they can be customers of several upstream ISPs and may have connections to each one of them at one or more point of presence.
ISPs may engage in peering, where several ISPs interconnect at peering points or Internet exchange points (IXs), allowing routing of data between each network, without charging one another for the data transmitted―data that would otherwise have passed through one third upstream ISP, incurring charges from the upstream ISP.
ISPs requiring no upstream and having only customers (end customers and/or peer ISPs) are dubbed Tier 1 ISPs. Network hardware, software and specifications, as well as the well preparedise of network management personnel are crucial in making sure that data follows the most efective route, and upstream connections work reliably. A tradeoff between cost and efficiency is possible.