Dear InetDaemon, My Internet provider told me they are the sole seller of Internet bandwidth. Who really is the sole seller of Internet bandwidth? Where does it come from? Sincerely, Confused Internet Consumer
Internet bandwidth doesn’t have a single source or a sole seller.
The whole idea of the Internet is that it is distributed and not centralized, so there is no such thing as a ‘sole source’. All telephone, cellular, cable and satellite service providers ‘manufacture’ bandwidth when they upgrade the physical equipment in their own network and add more connections between the different pieces of equipment. These providers then sell other connections to other providers and to their customers.
So, Internet bandwidth is ‘manufactured’ everywhere and nobody has a monopoly on it, so there is no such thing as a sole source. If that’s what you’re provider is telling you, they aren’t honest. Find someone else to get your Internet from.
-InetDaemon
Time for another e-mail from our readers:
How can I buy static IP addresses and how long does it remain valid? Do I renew it by subscribing year by year?
And we have another letter from one of our readers:
Why do so many people keep calling it TCP/IP ? [..] what's so special about TCP that people keep referring to it that way?
Time for another e-mail from the Ask InetDaemon mailbag:
Dear InetDaemon, I would like to know the difference between
LAN protocols and WAN protocols.