Functioning of the internet decoded

We are all surrounded by a net which we call the internet. There are more than 7 billion people on this planet and it can be said that all of them have been associated with the internet, at least once. The world has evolved in centuries. Humans have come a long way from the hunting and poaching era to a world of technology.Internet is being used for e-commerce, online education, and in the present scenario, for remote working too. 

 

There have been some great inventions and the internet is definitely among them. We surf for hours over the internet and access enormous amounts of information just through a click. In the olden days, people used to talk to their loved ones via letters and postcards. Now, people just video call them and can talk to them even if their loved ones are residing thousands of kilometers away. But have you ever wondered, how is this made possible? How does the internet work? 

 

In this article we are going to find the answer to this question. Along with an answer to the question, the article will look at different uses, types, and other subtopics. What does this 3G, 4G and other Gs mean? What can be the future picture of the world and how is it going to change our lives? So, just stick with the blog to get interesting information on the internet. We can start exploring with a brief history and definition of the internet.

 

What is the internet and how humans got their hands on it?

 

The Internet, as the name suggests, is a network of interconnected computers, mobile devices, and other such electronic devices. It's a massive network and isn't easy to track. To make it understandable, it can be confined to a simple network of computers. There is a server, there are other computers connected to it, and all the data is contained in the server. In a similar way, the internet has many such servers (that's why it is also called network of networks) which are kept in the data centers owned by big companies like Google. We will understand the functioning of a tad later in the blog. The Internet uses the internet protocol suite to operate. It consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet has a vast array of information resources and services. 

 

The origins of the internet date back to the 1960s. It started with the United States commissioning the development of packet switching and research to enable time-sharing of computers. Packet switching means to group data that is transmitted over a digital network into packets. The primary precursor network, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s. With elapsing time and technical developments, other countries started participating in extending the network. The fundings from the National Science Foundation Network and private firms led to the commercial extension. 

 

Now in 2020, the world has advanced the extension. The Internet has now roots in every corner of the planet. People now rely on the internet for every information. So, let's proceed to the working of the internet and understand how we access loads of information from the comfort of our homes. 

 

 

How does the internet work?

 

As it is mentioned above, the internet is a network of interconnected computers. There are many servers to which many other computers are connected. So, we will try to break down the functioning and try to get into the grooves one by one. 

 

Suppose a person requests information on Google, this request is first made to the Internet Service Provider(ISP). After this, the request is forwarded to the server of Google, which is located at the data center owned by the company. The server then sends the required data in the form of packets which are then transported via cables. The data reaches the nearest cell tower and then is received by the device in the form of electromagnetic waves. This is a basic example of how the internet generally functions. 

 

Some terms are not familiar to a normal person and some questions need to be answered. We will try to take them in a sequence. 

 

 

The first question is how is the information sent in packets i.e. the mode of transportation? 

 

There are big firms that have the responsibility of paving a path for data transmission. Fiber optic cables are the forefront leaders used in data transmission. A network is created by laying such cables all around the world. There are submarine cables laid under the oceans. It is useful in data transmission over continents (as in the above example). Then there are cables laid under the ground which ensure the delivery of data to every cell tower.

 

There can be three divisions based on the cable networks. The tier 1 companies own such networks at the international level, then there are tier 2 companies that look after data transmission within a country. The tier 3 companies have local networks which they use to facilitate their customers. We use different devices like modems, routers, SIM cards which belong to some companies which are called ISPs. These ISPs have tie-ups with the owners of cable networks and they work together to bring you the internet services. 

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The functioning of the internet 

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The second question can be how is the destination and source identified?

 

Every device, be it the big servers or mobile devices you are using now, is assigned a unique address which is called the Internet Protocol(IP) address. To avoid any conflict and confusion in these addresses there is an organization that is established to look after that is ICANN. It ensures the uniqueness of the IP addresses. The IP addresses are numbers like 172.876.986.123, as the computer understands the binary digits. As can be seen, these numbers are not easy to remember, there is a system of DNS (Domain Name Service). These domain names e.g. ww.google.com are easy to remember and are linked with the IP addresses. 

 

 

The third question is how come these data transmissions are made possible over such long networks? 
 

The fiber optic cables transmit data through light signals, as light travels the fastest. To ensure the speed remains the same throughout the journey, some devices are installed called Amplifiers. These devices boost the speed of the process. However, they also fail sometimes when we witness buffering. 

 

It's quite evident that the speed of data transmission has kept on increasing and engineers and technicians are continuously working to reach the best speed. We are currently using a 4G network and the world is working to achieve 5G speed. 

 

 

Conclusion

 

The Internet is helping us to survive in the technology-rich world. The reliance on the internet has continuously increased. We take its service every second minute of our schedule. It has made things possible which were not even imagined at times. People can see their loved ones from different corners of the globe. We search the World Wide Web, which has lakhs of websites under it, to get any information. The working of the internet is quite complex and widespread. However, we tried to break it and make it easy to pick. It can be said that the internet is the bigger and complex version of LAN, which is confined to single buildings. 

 

The usage of the internet can not be ignored and everyone can access it. Moreover, there is no single owner of the internet. Many firms work together to bring the service to the consumers.