How Does the Internet Work

Because open standards allow every network to connect to every other network, the Internet works.

This is what allows anyone to create content, provide services, and sell products without the need for permission from a central authority.

It evens the playing field for everyone, which is why we have such a diverse range of applications and services available to us today.

Who controls the Internet?

Everyone is, but no one is.

Unlike the telephone network, which was run for many years by a single company in most countries, the global Internet is made up of tens of thousands of interconnected networks run by service providers, individual companies, universities, governments, and others.

What is the Internet’s infrastructure like?

The Internet is a network of networks that must operate as if they were one all over the world.

The technical coordination of the Internet, like policy, shares some characteristics:

Open, independent, and run by non-profit membership organisations that collaborate to meet the needs of all.

What can you do to help ensure that the Internet remains an open and accessible platform?

At a time when many of the existing processes underlying Internet development and administration are being called into question, it is more important than ever to be involved in its future.

The Internet Society educates and informs people about the benefits of open, consensus-based processes and structures.

We also communicate with non-governmental organisations, regulatory bodies, and government agencies.

Packets

A packet is a small segment of a larger message in networking. Each packet contains data as well as information about the data. The “header” is information about the packet’s contents that goes at the front of the packet so that the receiving machine knows what to do with it. Consider how some consumer products include assembly instructions to help you understand the purpose of a packet header.

Consider the construction of the Statue of Liberty in the United States. The Statue of Liberty was designed and built in France for the first time. It was too large to fit on a ship, so it was shipped to the US in pieces, with instructions as to where each piece belonged. Workers who received the pieces reassembled them into the New York statue that stands today.

While the Statue of Liberty took a long time to complete, sending digital information in smaller pieces is extremely fast over the Internet. A photo of the Statue of Liberty, for example, stored on a web server can travel around the world one packet at a time and load on someone’s computer in milliseconds.

Protocols

Connecting two computers that may use different hardware and software is one of the main challenges that the Internet’s creators had to overcome. It necessitates the use of communication techniques that are understandable by all connected computers, just as two people from different parts of the world may require the use of a common language to understand each other.

What physical infrastructure is required for the Internet to function?

A wide range of hardware and infrastructure is required to make the Internet accessible to all. Some of the most important types are as follows:

Depending on their destination, routers route packets to different computer networks. Routers act as Internet traffic cops, directing Internet traffic to the appropriate networks.

Switches connect devices that are part of the same network. Packet switching is used to route packets to the appropriate devices. They also receive outbound packets from those devices and forward them to the appropriate destination.