Now that we have all decided to become electronically enlightened, we should consider the specifics of how we make a connection to the Internet. All individuals or organizations that wish to connect to the Net need an Internet Service Provider or (ISP).  This entity may also be called an Internet Access Provider or (IAP.) They provide the same type of equipment that you have on your end of the connection at their end and they also have a direct all-digital connection to the Internet that they purchase from a large scale ISP.  So even an Internet Service Provider needs an ISP.
    Let us explore some of the types of connections that your ISP may have available.  Most home users today still access their ISP and thus the Internet through a standard POTS analog telephone line.  This makes the use of a modem necessary to convert the digital signals to analog and back again.  This slows down the process of communication between your local client machine and the servers on the Internet that are trying to deliver the content that you desire.  Dial-up access currently can transfer information at a maximum rate of ~ 52Kbps because of telephone company regulations.
    The number of home users who are accessing Internet resources through an all-digital connection is growing.  The two most popular standards are digital cable and ADSL.  The first is offered by the cable TV folks and the second is offered by local telephone companies.  They each have advantages and disadvantages that we should discuss.  These are all-digital communication lines that are always connected.  You do not need to dial up.
    At work or school we need to put larger numbers of individuals online simultaneously, therefore we need more bandwidth.  This is another way of saying that we need a way to push more information through the same connection in less time.  There are several levels of service that would satisfy this need.  Most institutions of this size will connect through a dedicated connection.  This is an all-digital communication line that is always connected.  You do not dial up.   The primary disadvantage to these types of connections is that they are expensive.  T-1 service gives you a bandwidth of 1.544 Mbps, T-3 gives you ~ 45 Mbps.  As the media that we transmit through these lines becomes richer, the file sizes grow and the need for bandwidth grows as well.