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The rebelion
For years, the National Science Foundation banned commercial ISPs, permitting only government agencies and universities to use the internet. In 1989, that changed.
Sure, back then it was still staggeringly slow dial-up, but The World did exceptionally well in its first two years. Its radical newness generated a wide consumer base. By 1991, the NSF gave up and lifted the ban. A new era of technology was born. -
The Raging Noughties
By the year 2000, the ISP market looked very different from just five years before, with Earthlink, PSInet, Mindspring and UUNET ranking as the top four national internet service providers for businesses. In the consumer market, a whole different set of ISPs were vying for dominance with Excite@Home, The Microsoft Network, Prodigy Communications and America Online (AOL) ranking in as the top four consumers ISP’s. -
DSL comes onto the scene
A “digital subscriber line” — DSL — was the first form of faster internet services known as broadband. DSL carried the internet signal through existing phone lines at a much faster speed than dial-up. DSL was typically better for urban subscribers, because the closer they were to a city center, the faster their internet was. In some ways, that hasn’t changed much.The higher speeds of DSL spurred even more technological revolution in broadband services. -
Satellite bridges the gaps
The arrival of internet helped close those gaps in service. Satellite internet is not limited by cables or contained only to densely populated areas. Instead, a satellite sends and receives internet signals from space directly to an antenna (dish) on your home. If you were in the satellite’s coverage area with a clear view of the southern sky, chances are you could get it no matter where you lived. Many rural families were finally able to connect to the internet using this technology. -
Present day
Today we would struggle to imagine a time when, depending on your region, you could choose from any one of potentially hundreds of ISP’s. In 2017 the consumer broandband market is an effective duopoly in some parts of the country, controlled by the two of largest ISP’s that own their own internet backbone, Comcast and AT&T. Consumer internet speeds are ridiculously low in those parts of the country, despite their users paying some of the highest internet access fees in the country.