Internet service providers (ISPs) are companies that provide dial-up or broadband Internet connections, usually for a monthly fee.

DIAL-UP
Earthlink, NetZero/Juno, BasicISP, People PC and AOL are some of the most popular dial-up services. They charge anywhere from $9.95 to $24.95 per month. The difference in fees reflects the different services each company offers. For instance, the companies that offer more comprehensive customer service or tech support charge more.

Most companies need scanners, mainly to digitize documents. Doing so will help you secure and manage crucial information such as tax returns. Additionally, most scanners offer a technology called OCR (optical character recognition), which converts clear, high-contrast printed documents into text files you can edit in a word processing program instead of having to retype all the information into a word processing document.

Many companies opt for a flatbed scanner as opposed to a sheet-fed scanner. With a flatbed model, you can scan materials and three-dimensional objects other than paper.

Though not truly a peripheral, having a digital camera can help sell your products for higher prices because a good quality photo will make your product look better to the public. They can also help cut down on the number of questions from potential buyers because they will be able to see all the details of your product, especially if you have views from many different angles.

Since you will be dealing with the Internet, super-high mega-pixels aren’t an absolute necessity. But you still might want to look into a higher-resolution camera if you need to capture very fine details.

As would be expected, the capacity and speed of the basic connection service will determine the cost of your Internet access. The general rule is that the higher the bandwidth capacity and the faster the speed, the higher the cost to install and maintain your Internet link.

There are several ways of connecting to the Internet: from a simple dial-up link using a standard telephone line to faster and “always on” connections using a leased line, ISDN, ADSL, ‘cable’, satellite, terrestrial fixed and mobile wireless. The faster the connection the greater its capacity, enabling the fast transfer and download of data across the Internet.