An ISP (Internet Service Provider) is the people (whom you probably pay a fee monthly) who supply you with a connection to the internet to do things from surfing the web to e-mailing friends.  An ISP can provide you with different types of ways of connecting to the internet and this depends on the ISP.  These connection types are usually one of the following…

• Dial-Up
• DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)
• Cable
• T-1
• Satellite
• Wireless Adapter (to connect to a wireless carrier’s network)

A lot of people have the internet service as an add-on with their cable television provider or satellite television provider.  Some have internet service provided by their phone company or wireless phone company.  Some just mooch off of a nearby neighbor’s internet connection by connecting to their wireless router (whether they are aware or not).   In short, an ISP is whoever gives you a connection to the internet.

An IP (Internet Protocol) Address is basically how your computer or device is identified on the internet.  Any computer or device that is connected to the internet has to be assigned a logical IP Address whether it’s from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or your local router’s DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. 

You can think of an IP Address like a vehicle’s license plate.  Every vehicle driving on the road (legally) has a license plate which is registered to the local DMV.  The license plate is kind of like the car’s identification card, which allows someone (usually a cop) to run the plate and find out all kinds of information about the owner of the vehicle in which the license plate is registered to.  An IP Address works the same way.  Every computer surfing the web has to have some type of identifying IP Address, whether it be an IP assigned to the actual computer, the router the computer is connected to, or the proxy server the computer is connecting with.  This address is what identifies a computer on the web as a license plate is what identifies a vehicle on the road.

A MAC (Media Access Control) Address on the other hand is the physical address of the NIC (Network Interface Cards) in your computer (something like a serial number).  On broadcast networks, such as Ethernet, the MAC address uniquely identifies each node (workstation/computer) for specific packet delivery.  If you enjoy analogies, you can kind of compare the a NIC’s MAC address to a vehicle’s VIN number.  The MAC identifies the physical networking hardware as a vehicle’s VIN identifies a specific vehicle. 

The reason I picked a vehicle for my analogies is to help readers understand that a dynamic IP Address can change just like a vehicle’s license plate number can be changed.  But a MAC Address (under most circumstances) cannot be changed just like a vehicle’s VIN cannot be changed. 

A static IP Address however is an IP address that you keep constant and never changes (and usually have to pay a fee for).  Having a static IP is useful for those who run servers or any type of equipment where you need for the IP address to always stay the same.