Business models of Internet service providers

A business model can be perceived as a simple, yet focused, representation of the related activities of a company, which describes how to create the value of the company in terms of information, products and services. Given the significance of the Internet service infrastructure in new Internet-based business logic, notably the positive relationship between the growth of the Internet service infrastructure and GDP growth, this paper elaborates on the business model of the Internet service providers (ISPs). Accordingly, the ISPs' business model, in the scope of connectivity service providers, based on the selected meta model (Hedman and Kalling's ontology) at the industry level is analyzed. For validation and generalization assessment, the business components of two ISPs at the instance level and the business components of other service providers in the telecom industry (beyond the scope of this research) are compared, point by point, with the proposed business model components, respectively. The results of this study will raise the awareness of ISPs' executives and new entrants of different aspects of this business. The proposed business model can be considered as a basic model in the area of designing new business models, especially in the area of new Internet-based technologies.