AI Term of the Moment
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Redirected from: I-net
Definition: Internet
The term internet always meant a network of smaller networks. Today, it refers to the global Internet, which connects the world together like nothing before it.
Every Country Is Connected
More than five billion people use the Internet in some 200 countries, and hundreds of billions of messages traverse it every day. The U.S., China, India have the most users, but half the traffic is automated robots (see bot).
Access Was Command Driven
Before the Web and graphics browsers, academicians and scientists accessed the Internet with commands on a Unix machine. Some of these utilities are still used for all platforms. For example, FTP (file transfer program) uploads and downloads files, and Telnet lets users log in to a computer and run a program. See FTP, Telnet, Archie, Gopher and Veronica.
A Distributed Network
Not only does the Internet provide the largest source of information known to humankind, it is also the largest source of disinformation (see social media). The most traffic over the Internet is video streaming followed by everything else, including websites, email, voice, video, backup and machine-to-machine communications.
Email Lit the Fuse
In the mid-1990s, the Internet surged in growth, increasing a hundredfold in 1995 and 1996. The first reason was email. Until then, online services, such as AOL and CompuServe, provided email only to their customers. As they began to interface with the Internet's mail system, the Internet became a global email gateway. For the first time, AOL members could message CompuServe members, and vice versa. The Internet glued the world together for email and then for everything else.
The Bomb Exploded with the Web
With the advent of graphics-based Web browsers such as Mosaic, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the World Wide Web took off. The Web was now available to any user with a computer, not just scientists at workstations. Delphi was the first online service to offer Web access, and the others followed. Coming out of the woodwork, Internet service providers (ISPs) offered access to everyone, and the Web grew exponentially, soon becoming the majority of Internet traffic. Later, video streaming superseded Web pages. See ISP, HTTP and HTML.
Newsgroups and Chat Rooms
Although daily news and information is available on countless websites, long before the Web, information on myriad subjects was exchanged via User Network newsgroups (see Usenet). Still around, newsgroup articles can be selected and read directly from a Web browser.
The Original Internet
The Internet started in 1969 as ARPAnet, funded by the U.S. government. ARPAnet became a series of high-speed links between educational and research institutions mostly in the U.S. A major part of its backbone was the National Science Foundation's NSFNet. Along the way, it became known as the "Internet" or simply "the Net." By the 1990s, there were so many networks connected that the Internet was on its way to becoming commercialized. See ARPAnet.
And It Did in 1995
In 1995, the Internet was turned over to large commercial Internet providers (ISPs), such as MCI, Sprint and UUNET, which took responsibility for the backbones. Regional ISPs linked into these backbones to provide lines for their subscribers, and smaller ISPs hooked into the regional ISPs. Today, there are approximately 20 Tier 1 backbones worldwide, including AT&T, Verizon, Arelion, Lumen, NTT, Tata and Cogent.
The TCP/IP Protocol
Every computing device connected to the Internet uses the TCP/IP communications protocol. An Internet server, no matter its size, is a "host" and always online via TCP/IP, providing email, Web and other services. In the early days, the Internet was connected to non-TCP/IP networks through gateways that converted to and from TCP/IP. See TCP/IP.
Another Internet
Some of the original academic and scientific users of the Internet developed their own Internet once again. Internet2 is a high-speed academic research network that was started in much the same fashion as the original Internet (see Internet2). See Web vs. Internet, IoT, World Wide Web, how to search the Web, intranet, NAP, hot topics and trends, IAB, information superhighway and online service.
The Beginning of the Internet
How the Internet Is Connected
Every Country Is Connected
More than five billion people use the Internet in some 200 countries, and hundreds of billions of messages traverse it every day. The U.S., China, India have the most users, but half the traffic is automated robots (see bot).
Access Was Command Driven
Before the Web and graphics browsers, academicians and scientists accessed the Internet with commands on a Unix machine. Some of these utilities are still used for all platforms. For example, FTP (file transfer program) uploads and downloads files, and Telnet lets users log in to a computer and run a program. See FTP, Telnet, Archie, Gopher and Veronica.
A Distributed Network
Not only does the Internet provide the largest source of information known to humankind, it is also the largest source of disinformation (see social media). The most traffic over the Internet is video streaming followed by everything else, including websites, email, voice, video, backup and machine-to-machine communications.
Email Lit the Fuse
In the mid-1990s, the Internet surged in growth, increasing a hundredfold in 1995 and 1996. The first reason was email. Until then, online services, such as AOL and CompuServe, provided email only to their customers. As they began to interface with the Internet's mail system, the Internet became a global email gateway. For the first time, AOL members could message CompuServe members, and vice versa. The Internet glued the world together for email and then for everything else.
The Bomb Exploded with the Web
With the advent of graphics-based Web browsers such as Mosaic, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the World Wide Web took off. The Web was now available to any user with a computer, not just scientists at workstations. Delphi was the first online service to offer Web access, and the others followed. Coming out of the woodwork, Internet service providers (ISPs) offered access to everyone, and the Web grew exponentially, soon becoming the majority of Internet traffic. Later, video streaming superseded Web pages. See ISP, HTTP and HTML.
Newsgroups and Chat Rooms
Although daily news and information is available on countless websites, long before the Web, information on myriad subjects was exchanged via User Network newsgroups (see Usenet). Still around, newsgroup articles can be selected and read directly from a Web browser.
The Internet started in 1969 as ARPAnet, funded by the U.S. government. ARPAnet became a series of high-speed links between educational and research institutions mostly in the U.S. A major part of its backbone was the National Science Foundation's NSFNet. Along the way, it became known as the "Internet" or simply "the Net." By the 1990s, there were so many networks connected that the Internet was on its way to becoming commercialized. See ARPAnet.
And It Did in 1995
In 1995, the Internet was turned over to large commercial Internet providers (ISPs), such as MCI, Sprint and UUNET, which took responsibility for the backbones. Regional ISPs linked into these backbones to provide lines for their subscribers, and smaller ISPs hooked into the regional ISPs. Today, there are approximately 20 Tier 1 backbones worldwide, including AT&T, Verizon, Arelion, Lumen, NTT, Tata and Cogent.
The TCP/IP Protocol
Every computing device connected to the Internet uses the TCP/IP communications protocol. An Internet server, no matter its size, is a "host" and always online via TCP/IP, providing email, Web and other services. In the early days, the Internet was connected to non-TCP/IP networks through gateways that converted to and from TCP/IP. See TCP/IP.
Another Internet
Some of the original academic and scientific users of the Internet developed their own Internet once again. Internet2 is a high-speed academic research network that was started in much the same fashion as the original Internet (see Internet2). See Web vs. Internet, IoT, World Wide Web, how to search the Web, intranet, NAP, hot topics and trends, IAB, information superhighway and online service.
This four-node network diagram (annotated for this example) was the beginning of the ARPAnet and eventually the Internet. (Image courtesy of The Computer History Museum.)
Small Internet service providers (ISPs) hook into regional ISPs, which link into major backbones that traverse the U.S. such as AT&T, Verizon and Xfinity (Comcast). This diagram is conceptual because ISPs often span county and state lines.