IDEA No 11
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
An internet service provider (ISP) provides access to the internet in the same way that a telephone company provides access to a telephone network.
In the late ’90s, half of all the CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo on them, and the company was acquiring a new subscriber every six seconds.
After building ARPANET, the first packet-switching network (see The Space Race), BBN Technologies set out to create a private-sector equivalent. In 1975, it launched Telenet. Various organizations paid monthly fees to connect to it, allowing them to send email, chat, share files and access bulletin board systems.
In 1979, computer time-sharing business CompuServe began offering a dial-up information service to consumers. Sold through Radio Shack stores, the service proved more popular than anyone anticipated. People signed up to access news and use email, but the big attraction was CompuServe’s ‘CB Simulator’ chat software (see Web Chat).
CompuServe’s first serious competitor, an online service for Commodore 64 owners, launched in 1985. Q-Link offered a raft of services aimed at a less technical audience, including an interactive adventure game called Habitat, one of the first ‘massively multiplayer’ games, capable of supporting large numbers of participants. In 1989, Q-Link extended its service to IBM-compatible PCs and changed its name to America Online. With its user-friendly interface, low monthly fee and aggressive marketing it quickly became the dominant ISP.
As the Web grew, the ‘walled garden’ of restricted services offered by ISPs like CompuServe and AOL became less appealing. A number of new ISPs emerged, offering unrestricted access to the Web. In 1994, Prodigy became the first of the early-generation dial-up services to offer full access. AOL and CompuServe stubbornly stuck to their guns and slowly lost market share, AOL acquiring CompuServe in 1997.
AOL finally relented in 2006. It looked as though unrestricted access to a free, open internet was the Web’s only future. This turned out not to be the case. To the horror of many, the most successful online businesses today – the Apple Store, Amazon Kindle and Facebook – all operate closed networks.
Has the walled garden won out or will history repeat itself? Initially, users like the comfort of a stable, easy-tounderstand platform. Networks need the reassurance a monopoly gives them to grow. As users get more sophisticated, this becomes less satisfactory. People become less willing to put up with the restrictions, and an innovative new entrant to the market comes along with a fresh approach. Perhaps, like AOL and CompuServe before them, Facebook and Apple’s closed-network approach will ultimately be their undoing.■
Compuserve was the first and largest Internet Service Provider in the US. AOL stole its dominant position by offering internet access for a flat monthly subscription rather than charging by the hour.