Getting Connected with a Provider

Many companies provide free access to the Internet for their students and faculty. Users can often use a terminal in a computer lab or dial into the university's host system from their residences. Employees of corporations, the government, and other agencies may be connected directly or indirectly to the Internet if they have a local computer network.

Commercial on-line services began as information providers to their own subscribers. There were no connections to the outside. Created as complete, self-contained on-line resources, they provided information and entertainment including electronic mail, news, weather, sports, forums based on dozens of topics, gems, live keyboard-based chatting, shareware distribution, and more.

There are several ways to get connected to the Internet. First, you must determine what kinds of Internet connections are available where you are and how much you are willing to pay. You will need a modem to hook up your computer to the phone line, an account with an Internet provider, and software to run on your computer.

The first step in getting onto the internet is to find yourself an internet service provider. New computers often come equipped with software for connecting to one or more internet services. Most of these offer a thirty day free trial. This will give you a chance to sample the internet and decide whether you like that service or want to try another.

The cost for your Internet service depends upon the provider of the service and what type of service you have. Rates vary widely from one provider to the next, however, most access accounts cost about twenty dollars per month if there are no per hour charges. If you use a commercial on-line service, you normally pay a fixed amount for limited hours of use within one month.

Point to Point Protocol accounts and Serial Line Internet Protocol accounts, referred to as PPP and SLIP accounts, offer direct links to Internet routers from modem dial-ups and networks. SLIP, however, is less powerful and has been mostly superseded by PPP.

A shell account is access to the Internet through a Unix environment called a shell. A shell is a text-only terminal account which allows the user to enter commands at the prompt to use such tools as e-mail, remote login, and Gopher. Each Unix shell creates its own command prompt and has its own set of command variations for file and directory management and communication.

A dedicated leased line is a special telephone line, usually between an Internet service provider and a network, that distributes Internet services to its members

A-D-S-L, or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, is technology for transmitting digital information at high speeds on existing phone lines to homes and businesses. A-D-S-L is asymmetric in that is uses most of the channel to transmit data to you and only a small part to receive information from you.

An Internet Service Provider, referred to as an ISP, is an organization that provides Internet access accounts to individuals and businesses. It may be a commercial on-line service, a shell provider, or your school or workplace. ISP's offer a complete range of connectivity. All Internet access accounts give you e-mail, and most offer much more. Note, however, that not all Internet access accounts give you access to the Web.

Freenet is a free on-line system. The success of the first freenet, created at the University of Cleveland, led to freenets appearing all over the United States and Canada. Because you can telnet from one to another, if you can access one you can access them all. Groups throughout the world are in the process of setting up community freenets.

ISDN, or Integrated Services Digital Network, is a digital, medium speed connection that's an alternative to the dial-up phone system because it can carry audio, video, telephone, and Internet traffic. ISDN is not new to the Internet, but it is gaining popularity among users because of its digital quality and speed. It is a three-line system, employing two B lines and one D line.

Metering is the charging for the time you are on-line using Internet services, either hourly or by the minute. Some service providers offer a combination of metered and unmetered services. For example, a service provider may levy a monthly charge and offer you free Internet access for a pre-determined amount of time

If you use an Internet service provider, you pay that organization directly. It may be by the year, month, hour, or some combination thereof. The organization providing the service will determine rates and payment schedules. Most provide Internet services such as remote login, Gopher, and file transfer protocol which connect you to host computers across the country or across the world.

The most important factor in determining the kind of equipment you need for Internet access is how quickly you wnat data to move into, through, and out of the system. For IBM-based computers, you probably need a minimum of sixteen megabytes of system memory, although 32-, 64-, 96- and even 128-byte systems are becoming more common.

Your computer is connected to a host computer that has access to the internet system and passes internet traffic to you. On one side of that host is the connection to you by way of a modem or a network line. On the other side of that host are communications devices that give access to the Internet's backbone system. One of those communicator devices is a router.

A firewall is a special computer programmed to limit, or filter, the access to internal networks. A system has a firewall around it if it only lets certain kinds of messages in and out from the rest of the Internet.

A gateway is a computer that permits access into and out of an otherwise self-contained network. If the network uses a unique messaging standard that computes outside what the network can understand, the gateway will translate outgoing messages into the generic Simple Mail Transfer Protocol language that all Internet systems can understand. For more information on gateways, consult your local Internet provider.