19 WAN providers
Description
This article is from the Amiga Networking FAQ, by Richard Norman with numerous contributions by others.
19 WAN providers
ISP and WAN providers.
ISP -- Internet Service Provider
WAN -- Wide Area Network
WAN providers come in a variety of sizes and levels of service. Most of the really big WAN providers you probably already know such as MCI, Sprint, AT&T, BBN, etc. Some of the smaller ones came from government networks which have gone commercial. At least that is the way it is in the USA. Sorry I don't have any details on the European, Asian, or DownUnder markets.
ISP's are a fairly new breed of WAN provider. ISP's are dependent on WAN providers for the "infrastructure" i.e. phone lines. ISPs merely sell a service, and provide the direct support to the customer. Most ISPs are local Ma and Pa shops, and can keep their costs low. Others are larger and provide more service. Also online services such as Portal and Compuserve have become ISPs. Since ISP's can be local, check your paper or local user group for leads.
To get a fairly current list of WAN providers you can check your local bookstore. Most books on the Internet contain lists of WAN providers and ISPs.
Of course, if you can gain internet access, you have lots of ways to find providers. With Mosaic you can go to indexes such as Yahoo or NCSA and search. Also, most of the major providers have URL's which are easy to guess; www.mci.com for example.
Also, you can use electronic mail to get a copy of Peter Kaminski's PDIAL list. Send a message with "Send PDIAL" as the subject line. Send the message to info-deli-server@netcom.com Or you can subscribe by using "Subscribe PDIAL" as the subject line. You will then automatically get any updates to the list.
PDIAL is also available from the news.answers FAQ archive .
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