The Internet

What is the Internet?

Based on the article written by Barry Leiner, et al, “A Brief History of the Internet,” the Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location.”

Additional Information: www.fnc.gov/Internet_res.html

The Internet – Connections

Different types of Internet connections include:

	Computers in the backbone connected by a T3 data connection (45 megabits/second)
	ISP hosts and other powerful computers connect using T1 and Broadband lines
	Leased lines (some businesses)
	Modem dial-up connections (used by most home users)
	Cable modems (connected via the cable companies’ lines)
	ADSL – Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line –

According to one expert, ADSL is becoming popular because they use regular telephone lines, but at different frequencies than normal telephone use (not at the same frequency as the human voice so the lines can be used simultaneously). An advantage is that there is no dial-in – a user is always connected.

Internet Features

The Internet was originally launched as a partnership among the government, business and academia. The early evolution was called ARPAnet, which was started by the military. The intention was to develop an information infrastructure, which would allow computers to stay connected, and to communicate even if one or more of them failed.

The original ARPAnet involved into the Internet. MIT, MITRE, SRI, and BBN were the universities and organizations involved in the original development. Their goals included the ability to have distributed communications even with many failure points and the ability to route around non-functioning parts. There were four test sites to launch the Internet: SRI, UCLA, UCSB, and the University of Utah.

Kahn’s Internet Principles

R. Kahn, Communications Principles for Operating Systems. Internal BBN memorandum, Jan. 1972.

Bob Kahn, one of the founders of the initial Internet concepts, had four ground rules for the Internet and the protocol that could meet the needs of the open-architecture network environment. The protocols are responsible for all of the transport and forwarding services in the Internet. Kahn’s principles were:

	Each distinct network must stand on its own and no internal changes could be required to connect it to the Internet
	If a transmission failed, it would try again
	Black boxes would connect the networks; these were later called “gateways” and “routers”
	There would be no control over the global infrastructure.

Federal Decisions that Shaped the Internet

No one organization controls the Internet, however there were numerous federal decisions that helped shape the Internet. Federal agencies shared the cost of the common infrastructure (e.g. trans-oceanic circuits). CSNET/NSF (Farber) and ARPA (Kahn) shared the infrastructure without monitoring or specific controlling. “No commercialization” became the acceptable use policy. Privately funded organizations began to formalize as early as 1988. The National Science Foundation (NSF) defunded the NSF’s Internet backbone in 1995 and redistributed its funds to regional networks to buy from now-numerous private networks. NSF netted $200 million from their network between 1986-1995.

Four Aspects of the Internet

According to the experts in a “Brief History of the Internet,” there are four main aspects to the history of the Internet:

	Technological – This evolution began with the research on packet switching and the focus on expanding the infrastructure via scale, performance and functionality
	Operations and management – A global and complex operational infrastructure
	Social – Led to a special culture of people, the Internauts (“the original web-surfers”)
	Commercialization – An effective transition took place from a research focus to a widely used, widely-accepted information infrastructure (i.e., email, HTML)

Additional Information: http://info.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html

How Internet Manages Change?

The Internet manages change primarily through the following means:

	RFC process – Request for comments are used by researchers to create a positive feedback loop, consensus and now, to formulate protocol “standards.” “RFCs are viewed as the documents of record in the Internet engineering and standards community,” according to Barry Leiner, et al in the “Brief History of the Internet.”
	W3C process – The World Wide Web Consortium is responsible for the continuously developing protocols and web standards
	The proliferation of current stakeholders – The rapidly growing number of individuals and organizations involved with the Internet impacts how the Internet evolves in the future.
	Debates over the control of name space – Recently, the government ended the website name monopoly long controlled by Network Solutions in Reston, Virginia.
	Profits to be made and lost by entities involved with the Internet – Financially-impacted stakeholders will have an impact on the evolution of the Internet
	Commercial vs. other interests – Website appearances can vary greatly depending on whether they are commercially-oriented or not

Historically, the Internet managed change through the core group of Internet designers. Now that the group of interested stakeholders has grown phenomenally, it is a question as to how the evolution and process of change will be managed.

Trends in Internet Applications

The Internet is developing so rapidly that recent trends are not new anymore. Some of these trends include:

	Internet TV (Web TV and VIATV Videophone)
	Voice over IP (VoIP)
	Internet telephone
	Internet dashboard (Alpine GPS – global positioning system and Windows CE in cars)
	Wireless (WAP) – The wireless applications protocol that provides a minimized version of http (the hypertext protocol) for handheld units because of their limited screen and memory capacity. (i.e., weather updates or wireless modem for a Palm)