The authorized account holder is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address.

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Even PLDT, which already operates a cable-TV system and an Internet service provider, is planning to offer cable Net access, "maybe before the end of 1999, " says Samson.

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It was conceived in 1995 as a proprietary service as AOL had been, then reinvented as a straight Internet access provider, then it ventured into content and online "channels, " even trying to produce Web sitcoms.

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All told, this will give WorldCom more than 500, 000 local modem-access lines, making it the world's largest Internet-service provider.

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In Syria, for instance, the state-controlled service provider known as the Syrian Telecom Establishment alone controls access to the foreign Internet, a fact that made its digital shutdown in the midst of the armed conflict there relatively simple.

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