Accessing the Internet

The Internet has become increasingly more popular in the recent years. This is no surprise considering the amount of attention it gets from newspapers, magazines and books. Many people are trying eagerly to join the Internet community.

There are three basic levels of access to the internet.

1. Email only: This only allows you to send and receive email to/from other users on the internet. Through special email gateways, you can make use of Archie, FTP, Gopher, World Wide Web (WWW) and posibly other internet services. These gateways, however, are text-based and non-interactive and can be rather cumbersome to use. Internet email can be gated to other types of network services (eg., FidoNet, Compuserve, etc), so neither you nor the service that provides you the internet email have direct access to the internet.
2. Shell account or dial-up host access: This lets you login to another remote computer system, usually via modem and telephone, that is itself connected to the internet. You normally run programs on the remote system to gain access to internet services. Because you typically dial-up from a terminal emulation software, you are restricted to text mode programs only. This means that, for example, you can only use a text-based web browser to explore the World Wide Web.
3. Direct connect: This is the ultimate form of internet connection where your computer system is itself directly on the internet. It speaks the language of the internet (TCP/IP). Any access to internet services is via programs that run on your own computer system.

Traditionally, computers plug directly into the internet over a LAN, WAN or leased circuit. In addition to the computer itself, such setups often require expensive network routers and gateways. Needless to say, these can add up to a lot of money. As a result, direct internet connections are primarily only within the reach of organizations with high internet traffic needs.

The alternative for home users is to dial-up into a remote computer system that is directly connected to the internet. The user will need to be able to login to the remote system. Some Internet Service Providers limit the access of such users to a menu system while others allow shell access (like the MS-DOS command line on PCs) for users to roam around. This is dial-up host access.

While we've only mentioned 3 basic levels of internet access above, there's another mode of internet access worth mentioning. Many commercial on-line services are adding internet-related features to their existing services. This includes CompuServe and America Online. In Singapore, Teleview provides a facility to access internet services from a menu front-end on a Unix basd internet host. Sometimes, these value added services are very much the same as using a shell account.

Now, we'll look at what SLIP/PPP is all about.

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