An ISP, short for Internet Service Provider, is an organization. It sells access to the Internet and related services. These services include Internet access, Internet transit, domain name registration, web hosting and colocation. Colocation means a customer places its own servers in the ISP building.
History of ISP
Creator: No single creator. The first commercial ISPs were started in Australia and the United States in 1989. Year: 1989.
The Internet began as ARPANET. ARPANET was a network between government research labs and university departments. Other groups joined in two ways. They joined through direct connections to the backbone. They also joined through companies that were already connected. In the late 1980s a process started. It opened the network for public and business use. Some limits were removed by 1991. That was the year the World Wide Web was introduced.
In 1989 the first ISPs began to sell direct access to the Internet. They sold it for a monthly fee in Australia and the United States. A company named The World became the first commercial ISP in the United States. It was based in Brookline, Massachusetts. Its first customer was served in November 1989. Most early ISPs used dial-up connections over the public telephone network. Online services offered e-mail. They did this before full Internet access was open to the public. Those services were CompuServe, Prodigy and America Online.
Cable television companies and telephone carriers already had wired connections to homes. They offered broadband service with cable modems. They also offered digital subscriber line (DSL) technology. DSL was faster than dial-up. These companies became the main ISPs in most service areas. In 1995 the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was shut down. Network access points were then created. Commercial ISPs used them to exchange traffic with each other.
Changelog and latest update
The service of an ISP changed in three stages. The first stage offered dial-up access over telephone lines. The second stage added broadband access over cable and DSL lines. A later stage added fiber and wireless access. Each stage kept the same role. The ISP connects a customer to the Internet. It passes the customer traffic to other networks.
The ISP role also grew. It now includes domain registration, web hosting and colocation. Its operations link to the Domain Name System (DNS). DNS turns host names into IP addresses. Net neutrality is a policy question. It asks whether an ISP may treat some traffic differently from other traffic. The Wikipedia article covers the debate in the United States.
Security is now part of ISP work. Email addresses and passwords held by an ISP are a target for theft. In June 2026, KDDI Corporation disclosed a breach of shared email services at six Japanese ISPs. Security Affairs reported that up to 14.2 million email accounts were affected. The attackers exploited a flaw in third-party software. The investigation was ongoing.
Latest update: Japan ISP email breach (2026), 2026-06-28
Security Affairs reported on 2026-06-28. KDDI Corporation disclosed the breach. It affected six Japanese ISPs. Up to 14.2 million email accounts were affected. The company detected the intrusion on June 17, 2026. This item is a security event, not a product release.
Usage examples
An ISP assigns the public IP address and the DNS servers that a customer computer uses. The examples below look up the ISP that owns an IP address. They read the DNS servers that the ISP gave a Linux computer. They check the ISP name for the current connection. Commands run on Linux or macOS with the standard tools installed.
whois 8.8.8.8 | grep -i orgname
# OrgName: ...The whois command asks the regional registry for the record of an IP address. The OrgName line names the organization that holds the address block. For a home connection, this is the ISP that serves the customer. The example uses 8.8.8.8, a public address used for testing.
grep ^nameserver /etc/resolv.conf
# nameserver 192.0.2.53The file /etc/resolv.conf lists the DNS servers that the computer queries. When the connection uses automatic settings, these addresses often come from the ISP. The address shown is a documentation address from RFC 5737. It will differ on a real computer.
curl -s https://ipinfo.io/org
# AS64496 Example ISPThis curl request asks the ipinfo.io service for the organization. The organization holds the public IP address of the current connection. The reply gives the autonomous system number (ASN) and the company name. The reply above is a placeholder, not a real result.
curl -s https://ipinfo.io/ip
# 198.51.100.7This request returns only the public IP address seen by the outside world. Compare the reply with the address shown on the router. Different values mean that network address translation (NAT) is used between the computer and the Internet.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
Internet service provider
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Encyclopedia article on ISPs. It covers the services an ISP provides and the forms of ISP ownership. It also covers the 1989 start of commercial access and the 1995 end of NSFNET restrictions.
Brief History of the Internet
Internet Society
Background history of the Internet from the Internet Society. It describes ARPANET and the expansion to universities. It also covers the move to public use, which explains why ISPs began to offer access to the general public.
NSFNET
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Article on the National Science Foundation Network. It covers the backbone network and its 1995 shutdown. It also covers the network access points that let commercial ISPs exchange traffic.
Internet access
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Article on the methods used to reach the Internet, including dial-up, DSL, cable and fiber. It explains the last-mile connection between a customer and the ISP network that this article describes.
RFC 1918: Address Allocation for Private Internets
IETF, RFC Editor
Document from the IETF that reserves private IP address ranges for internal networks. ISPs and routers use these ranges, which explains why a router address differs from the public address shown to outside services.
ipinfo developer documentation
ipinfo.io
Developer documentation for the ipinfo lookup service used in the examples. It describes the org field. The field names the autonomous system and company behind an IP address. It also covers the plain-text endpoints used with curl.
KDDI Data Breach Impacts up to 14.2 Million Email Accounts at Six ISPs
Security Affairs
Dated news report from 2026-06-28 on the KDDI breach of shared email services at six Japanese ISPs. It gives the up to 14.2 million account figure. It also gives the June 17 detection date and the third-party software flaw.
Test your site from outside your own internet
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