Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) provides some of the services of Authentication Headers (AH), but it is primarily designed to provide:

Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) uses encryption to protect the payload of IP packets, ensuring that the data remains confidential and unreadable to unauthorized parties. While ESP can also provide integrity and authentication, its core and primary design goal distinguishing it from AH is data confidentiality.

Cryptography is the underlying method used by ESP to achieve confidentiality, but confidentiality is the specific security service provided, not the method itself.

Digital signatures are a method for ensuring authenticity and integrity, typically used in other security protocols or as part of authentication mechanisms, not the primary service of ESP.

Access Control limits who can access resources, which IPSec can indirectly support by securing communications, but it's not the primary service ESP directly provides to the data itself.