Internet

Introduction
The Internet is a decentralized network of computer networks that enables millions of private and public computers around the world to communicate with each other. This interconnection of multiple computer networks, which otherwise would function only as a series of independent and isolated islands, gives rise to the term “Internet” as we know it today.

Historical Development
The Internet developed out of research efforts funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the 1960s and 1970s to create and test interconnected computer networks. The fundamental aim of computer scientists working on this “ARPANET” was to develop an overall Internet architecture that could connect and make use of existing computer nagement of its resources; (5) the architecture must be cost-effective; (6) the architecture must permit attachment by [[computer devices with a low level of effort; and (7) the resources used in the Internet architecture must be accountable.

By the late 1960s, computer scientists were experimenting with non-linear, “packet-switching” techniques to enable computers to communicate with each other.

By the mid-1970s, computer scientists had developed several software communications standards &mdash; or protocols &mdash; for connecting computers within the same network. At about the same time, ARPANET scientists developed a protocol for connecting different networks to each other, called the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”) software suite.

This approach requires that individual networks be connected together by gateway interface devices, called switches or routers. Thus, interconnected networks are, in effect, a series of routers connected by transmission links. Packets of data are passed from one router to another, via the transmission links.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the interconnection of computer networks using TCP/IP continued to grow, spurred by uses such as e-mail. In the mid-1980s, the National Science Foundation (“NSF”) recognized that computer networks were having an important impact on scientific research by facilitating communications between researchers working in different locations. NSF and DARPA had been jointly funding a network to connect computer science researchers (“CSNET”) since the late 1970s.

In 1985, NSF announced a plan to connect one hundred universities to the Internet, in addition to five already-existing supercomputer centers located around the country. Recognizing the increasing importance of this interconnected network to U.S. competitiveness in the sciences, however, NSF embarked on a new program with the goal of extending Internet access to every science and engineering researcher in the country.

In 1988, NSF, in conjunction with a consortium of private-sector organizations, completed a new long-distance, wide-area network, dubbed the “NSFNET” backbone. Although private entities were now involved in extending the Internet, its design still reflected ARPANET’s original goals.

Although the original ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990, its influence continued because TCP/IP has replaced most other wide-area computer network protocols, and because its design, which provided for generality and flexibility, proved to be durable in a number of contexts. At the same time, its successful growth made clear that these design priorities no longer matched the needs of users in certain situations, particularly regarding accounting and resource management.

By 1992, the volume of traffic on NSFNET was approaching capacity, and NSF realized it did not have the resources to keep pace with the increasing usage. Consequently, the members of the consortium formed a private, non-profit organization called Advanced Networks and Services (“ANS”) to build a new backbone with transmission lines having thirty times more capacity. For the first time, a private organization – not the government – principally owned the transmission lines and computers of a backbone. At the same time that privately owned networks started appearing, general commercial activity on the NSFNET was still prohibited by an Acceptable Use Policy. Thus, the expanding number of privately owned networks were effectively precluded from exchanging commercial data traffic with each other using the NSFNET backbone. Several commercial backbone operators circumvented this limitation in 1991, when they established the Commercial Internet Exchange (“CIX”) to interconnect their own backbones and exchange traffic directly. Recognizing that the Internet was outpacing its ability to manage it, NSF decided in 1993 to leave the management of the backbone to the competing commercial backbone operators. By 1995, this expanding network of commercial backbones had permanently replaced NSFNET, effectively privatizing the Internet.

The growth of the Internet has been fueled in large part by the popularity of the World Wide Web, created in 1989. The number of websites on the Internet has grown from one in 1989, to 18,000 in 1995, to fifty million in 2004, and to more than one hundred million in 2006. This incredible growth has been due to several factors, including the realization by businesses that they could use the Internet for commercial purposes, the decreasing cost and increasing power of personal computers, the diminishing complexity of creating websites, and the expanding use of the Web for personal and social purposes. From its creation to its early commercialization, most computer users connect[[ed to the Internet using a “[[narrowband” dial-up telephone connection and a special modem to transmit data over the telephone system’s traditional copper wires, typically at a rate of up to 56 kilobits per second (“Kbps”). Much faster “broadband” connections have subsequently been deployed using a variety of technologies. These faster technologies include coaxial cable, upgraded copper digital subscriber lines, fiber-optic cables, and wireless, satellite, and broadband-over-powerline technologies.

The thousands of individual networks that make up the global Internet are owned and administered by a variety of organizations, such as private companies, universities, research labs, government agencies, and municipalities. Data packets may potentially travel from their originating computer server across dozens of networks and through dozens of routers before they reach an Internet service provider and arrive at a destination computer. This process of disassembly, transmission, and reassembly of data packets may take as little as a fraction of a second for a simple piece of information like a text e-mail traveling along a high-speed network, or it may take several hours for a larger piece of information like a high-resolution video traveling a long distance along a low-speed network.

The Internet connects millions of individuals and organizations in a way that allows almost instantaneous communications using computers, computerized mobile devices, and other network attachments. End users interact with each other through an ever-expanding universe of content and applications, such as: e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, commercial Web sites for purchasing goods and services, social networking sites, Web logs (“blogs”), music and video downloads, political forums, voice over IP (“VoIP”) telephony services, streaming video applications, and multi-player network video games. Internet users include individuals of virtually all ages and walks of life, established businesses, fledgling entrepreneurs, non-profit groups, academic and government institutions, and political organizations.