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Although there is increasingly fewer differences between a major internet service provider and smaller internet service provider there are a few differences. Were speaking of the MCI's, Earthlink's, MSN, AOL, etc.

Dynamic homepage
Regular content here varies but the homepage offers vary and can include, email access point, exclusive content like sports and entertainment ventures (popular with AOL) and information to standard one spot news for business, sports, national and international news, message boards and more. Though for dial up users especially today we have a variety of portal sites (ie Yahoo.com, Excite.com, MSN.com, Lycos) which you can bookmark, often customize including news, stock quotes, astrology and more and call it your homepage. AOL specifically would be the only homepage available to AOL cusomers only since you need the software to access there non internet online homepage and community.

Customer support
Clearly all the major internet service providers have large phone customer support staff that does not however mean that there easily accessible with possible delays. But pure isp providers are aware that customer support are very important to there only business and want to protect that fact.

Email
There is good news and bad news on the email front. The good news is the major providers typically offer a well formatted email accounts that are as nice to use as somewhat higher end email services for the average consumer needs and can be connected to the like of Eudora or Microsoft Outlook. Web accessible accounts and POP email forwarding also.
The bad news is the major providers tend to have a bullseye on them and are the most frequently attacked by hackers, spammers, and scammers; the later two can be minimized by ignoring spammers, blocking them and recognizing that scammers cant fully use every logical channels to scam you (ie website urls', email address, etc.) use only the host site or phone numbers listed on there sites for your billing and support needs. Do not send confidential information ever by email. If someone calls you unknowingly, get there name and mumber then call back using the providers site listed contact information to verify them and then be forwarded to them, better safe than sorry.

Low cost internet
Low cost providers can be similar or offer fewer service details but depending on your level of service needs like customer service or desire to save money low cost internet providers have become every bit as popular as full service providers. Low cost providers include service like netzero at www.Netzero.com

- Major internet providers with local access numbers.