A communications service provider or CSP is a service provider that transports information electronically, for example a telecommunications service provider. The term encompasses public and private companies in the telecom (landline and wireless), Internet, cable, satellite, and managed services businesses.
The market in which a communication service provider specializes is often a function of the industry served. These industries can be divided into three categories: telecommunications, entertainment and media, and Internet/Web services. Some communication service providers have branched into multiple areas. Others provide communication services across all major categories.
The term CSP came into vogue in the late 1990s. Prior to this time, communications businesses were highly specialized, with little overlap between traditional telecom, cellular, cable, and Internet companies. In the 1990s, deregulation (in the US, the Telecom Act of 1996) and technology convergence began to cause massive upheaval in the industry. As companies began to offer broader portfolios of communications services, traditional categories were inadequate to describe service providers. The term "communications service provider" is now widely accepted as a broad category encompassing all of these businesses.
Famous quotes containing the words service and/or provider:
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)
“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)