Connecting via a Commercial Online Service

A typical dial-up or broadband ISP does nothing but connect you to the Internet and provide you with an email address and inbox and, in some cases, storage space for your own personal Web page. You can probably find a few local ISPs operating in your city or town, or you can turn to one of a handful of national ISPs. These national ISPs offer dial-up numbers all across the United States (great for when you're traveling).

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The two largest national ISPs are AT&T Worldnet (www.att.net) and EarthLink (www.earthlink.net). You can find a list of more than 10,000 national and local ISPs at The List (thelist.internet.com).

If all this sounds a little confusing to you, you might want to opt for a service that provides a little more hand-holding, such as that offered by America Online (AOL) or MSN. These commercial online services function like ISPs but also provide their own unique content and interfaces. If you sign up for AOL, for example, you use AOL's software to connect to the Internet and can also access AOL-specific content and services not available anywhere else.

Many new computer users prefer to connect to AOL because it's so easy to use, as you can see in Figure 21.1. On the other hand, many experienced computer users don't like being forced to use AOL's software and prefer to go with a normal ISP.

Figure 21.1. Connecting to the Internet via America Online.

If you decide to go with a commercial online service, you'll pay between $20 $30 per month for dial-up service, higher for broadband.