Dave, I look forward to your and others' comments on the following subject.
What "does" an ISP do? And what qualities separate traditional ISPs from those of ATHM and RR, if any?
From: Message 12332349
Re: ISPs, in the context of the previous exchange here
To be up front and clear about this, ATHM does, in fact, share many of the same
attributes as a traditional ISP from the perspective of the end user, to date. There
are some fundamental aspects, however, where they depart from the norm sufficiently
for me, in my own mind, to classify them as an "other." In many ways they are still
fulfilling the visions of the Cable Barons of years gone by, adopting only those bare
essential measures which allow them to access the greater riches of the larger 'net. And, in the process, allowing their users some added bennies not allowed to other SP subscribers, yet. This 'yet' qualifier is important, because sooner or later the rest of the world will adopt comparable enhanced services. At that point, the question will be one of compatibility with the "existing" cable modem variant's.
In our previous exchange we focused on the way that ATHM isolates their IP backbone and distribution routes to their own use, as opposed to sharing them with other ISPs in a peering, or even a leased, sense. That's where they depart for the most part from the practices of other "ISPs," and provides me cause enough to qualify them as something other than one of the traditionals.
There are other areas where they differ considerably from the norm. In a more
fundamental way, at the user location, they have special software and hardware
interface hooks made possible through DOCSIS which are foreign to the rest of the
Internet world from a compatibility standpoint, allowing cable modem users to have
both dissimilar forms of services at their disposal, and at the same time services which
are not entirely communicable to the rest of the 'net. And these features are certainly
their prerogative to continue using, at least for the time being.
----
You asked,
"What the heck does an ISP do?"
In order to keep my reply simple enough to fit on one page, I'll limit the processes to
those which I see as least common denominators among all traditional ISPs.
Of course, in this age of convergence taking place on so many different fronts, the list of what ISPs do and can do would be endless, left only to the imagination. So, I will keep it simple, enumerating only on those aspects which I regard as minimal qualifying attributes.
----
The classical Internet Service Provider, or ISP, is the fundamental building block of the
Internet. The only things lower (or higher, depending on your rules of reference) in the
pecking order are the individual users, themselves.
Collectively, ISPs comprise the basic "glue" which keeps the WWW up and running.
Without them you have some Bell System-like arrangement of private lines and
gateway-kludge assemblies which would bring us back to late Eighties, or thereabouts,
where each endpoint-pair would be dependent on a private line (either physical or
virtual) connection.
ISPs both compete and cooperate with one another. Up until recently, these conditions
were governed by unwritten (sometimes written, but most often passed down in
folklore-ish manner) precepts of "good citizenry." I kid you not. And there is no more
noble way, IMO, to conduct the singlemost profound form of business which is
changing the ways of life of all of the world's citizenry than to do it by rules of good
citizenry.
If we put aside all of the the pooh-poohing regarding altruism versus capitalism, or
egalitarianism versus conservative business practices, no one can argue that the
Internet has worked out extremely well, despite its counterintuitive measures which
stand in sharp contrast to established business norms. The proof of this is in your
reading this very page.
This is not to suggest that ISPs are self deprecating, or that they all eschew profits.
While a small percentage may actually fit the latter description for reasons entirely
philosophical and academic, on the whole the majority of ISPs aspire to be just as
profitable as any other form of business. And with consolidation always looming, their
motivation is higher than ever to stay competitive.
It's just that there is an aura of going about it in a good citizenry way, perhaps more so
than in the other sectors of communications. And this has, thus far, stood the test of
several decades of time.
----
From the perspective of the average everyday user, one of the most obvious functions
of an ISP is their provisioning of local Internet "access" to individuals and enterprises.
Beyond "access arrangements" in central offices and upstream links to their POPs, they
are responsible to provide, at a minimum:
- DNS and other forms of directory services
- e-mail services, news services, proxy services, minimal caching of network attributes
- account tracking (and a slew of internal admin functions)
- linking & peering with other ISPs and Backbone providers
- endless amounts of route administration, network surveillance and management, and
considerable devotion to stewardship aimed at keeping users up and healthy
The above are generally accepted as the bare essentials of what an ISP must do in
order to qualify as one, although I didn't go very deeply into any of them.
For example, most will also be preoccupied with putting up constant defenses against
smurf attacks, spam prevention, virus detection... these and many other processes are
all, to some extent, electives, but done, nevertheless, by quality conscious ISPs under
the umbrella of preventive maintenance and quality assurance.
Beyond these, they are free to entrep into many other areas, including:
- web hosting and colo provisions
- asp'ing
- voice and other clec-like functions
- streaming content provision
- multicast services
- etc. ad infinitum
What did I forget?
Comments and corrections welcome.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
