A network service provider (NSP) is a business or organization that sells bandwidth or network access by providing direct backbone access to the Internet and usually access to its network access points (NAPs). For such a reason, network service providers are sometimes referred to as backbone providers or internet providers.
Network service providers may consist of telecommunications companies, data carriers, wireless communications providers, Internet service providers, and cable television operators offering high-speed Internet access.
A few information technology companies are also emerging into the NSP market, notably IBM, EDS, CSC, Vanco and Atos Origin. This is due to the convergence of information technology and communications technology into one Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
Famous quotes containing the words network, service and/or provider:
“Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“That is the thankless position of the father in the family—the provider for all, and the enemy of all.”
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)