You can choose from five different types of Internet service
providers. - Dial up or telephone modem service
- DSL
- Cable
- Satellite
- Wireless
You can check locally for dial-up and radio-wave based
Internet service. Here we'll compare some DSL, cable and
satellite providers with a wide geographic reach. The speed of Internet access is measured in bps or bits per
second: bps | Bits per second | Kbs | Kilo or thousands of bits per second | Mbps | Mega or millions of bits per second | Gbps | Giga or billions of bits per second |
Gigabits per second is a speed that you won't easily find
at the moment, but it's hoped that we will all have access
to this kind of speed in the near future. Broadband Internet connections have two data transfer speeds.
The upstream speed is the speed at which you're sending
information onto the Internet, and downstream speed is the speed
at which information is coming to you from the Internet. The following is a table of some of the nationally known ISPs
and some of their characteristics. ISP | Number of states covered | Number of e-mail accounts | Monthly fee | Speed (upstream/ downstream) | Web Space | Cable | AT and T | 14 | 7 | $46 | 128 kbps/ 1.5 mbps | 10 MB | Comcast | 21 | 7 | 50 | 128 kbps/ 1.5 mbps | 10 MB | Cox Communications | 19 | 7 | 35 | 256 kbps/ 3 mbps | 10 MB | Road Runner | 23 | 5 | 50 | 768kpbs/ 2 mbps | 5 MB | | DSL | Earthlink |
49 |
8 |
50 |
128 kbps/
1.5 mbps |
10 MB | Verizon |
26 |
4 |
50 |
128 kbps/
768 mbps |
10 MB | Hughes DirectTV |
33 |
5 |
50 |
128 kbps/
1.5 mbps |
10 MB | | Satellite | Hughes Network Systems DirectWay |
50 |
1 |
70 |
60 kbps/
500 kbps |
10 MB | Echostar Starband |
50 |
10 |
70 |
60 kbps/
600 kbps |
10 MB |
Computer magazines, many of which have Web sites, have lots of
information about ISPs. | 
2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education