Internet service provider in the context of "Upload"

A telecommunications company is a kind of electronic communications service provider, more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many traditional solely telephone companies now function as internet service providers (ISPs), and the distinction between a telephone company and ISP has tended to disappear completely over time, as the current trend for supplier convergence in the industry develops. Additionally, with advances in technology development, other traditional separate industries such as cable television, Voice-over IP (VoIP), and satellite providers offer similar competing features as the telephone companies to both residential and businesses leading to further evolution of corporate identity have taken shape.

Due to the nature of capital expenditure involved in the past, most telecommunications companies were government-owned agencies or privately owned monopolies operated in most countries under close state regulation. But today there are many private players in most regions of the world, and even most of the government-owned companies have been opened up to competition in-line with World Trade Organization (WTO) policy agenda. Historically, these government agencies were often referred to, primarily in Europe, as PTTs (postal, telegraph and telephone services). Telecommunications companies are common carriers, and in the United States are also known as local exchange carriers. With the advent of mobile telephony, telecommunications companies now include wireless carriers, or mobile network operators and even satellite providers (Iridium).

Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public. Types of connections range from fixed-line cable (such as DSL and fiber optic) to mobile (via cellular) and satellite.

The availability of Internet access to the general public began with the commercialization of the early Internet in the early 1990s, and has grown with the availability of useful applications, such as the World Wide Web. In 1995, only 0.04 percent of the world's population had access, with well over half of those living in the United States and consumer use was through dial-up. By the first decade of the 21st century, many consumers in developed nations used faster broadband technology. By 2014, 41 percent of the world's population had access, broadband was almost ubiquitous worldwide, and global average connection speeds exceeded one megabit per second.

In Internet networking, a private network is a computer network that uses a private address space of IP addresses. These addresses are commonly used for local area networks (LANs) in residential, office, and enterprise environments. Both the IPv4 and the IPv6 specifications define private IP address ranges.

Most Internet service providers (ISPs) allocate only a single publicly routable IPv4 address to each residential customer, but many homes have more than one computer, smartphone, or other Internet-connected device. In this situation, a network address translator (NAT/PAT) gateway is usually used to provide Internet connectivity to multiple hosts. Private addresses are also commonly used in corporate networks which, for security reasons, are not connected directly to the Internet. Often a proxy, SOCKS gateway, or similar devices are used to provide restricted Internet access to network-internal users.

The telecommunications industry within the sector of information and communication technology comprises all telecommunication/telephone companies and Internet service providers, and plays a crucial role in the evolution of mobile communications and the information society.

Telephone calls continue to be the industry's largest revenue generator, but due to advances in network technology, telecom today is less about voice and increasingly about text (messaging, email) and images (e.g. video streaming).High-speed Internet access for computer-based data applications such as broadband information services and interactive entertainment is pervasive. Digital subscriber line (DSL) is the main broadband telecom technology. The fastest growth comes from (value-added) services delivered over mobile networks.

Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line which could be connected using an RJ-11 connector. Dial-up connections use modems to decode audio signals into data to send to a router or computer, and to encode signals from the latter two devices to send to another modem at the ISP.

Dial-up Internet reached its peak popularity during the dot-com bubble. This was in large part because broadband Internet did not become widely used until well into the 2000s. Since then, most dial-up access has been replaced by broadband.

Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings, is an American multinational mass media, telecommunications, and entertainment conglomerate. Headquartered at the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, the company was ranked 51st in the Forbes Global 2000 in 2023. It is the fourth-largest telecommunications company by worldwide revenue, after AT&T, Verizon, and China Mobile. Comcast is the third-largest pay-TV company, the second-largest cable TV company by subscribers, and the largest home Internet service provider in the United States.

It owns and operates the Xfinity residential cable communications business segment and division; Comcast Business, a commercial services provider; and Xfinity Mobile, an MVNO of Verizon Communications. The company is also the nation's third-largest home telephone service provider, serving residential and commercial customers in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users.

The DMCA's principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of Internet service providers and other intermediaries. This exemption was adopted by the European Union in the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000. The Information Society Directive 2001 implemented the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty in the EU.

An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), 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 as bulletin board systems, 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.