Internet
The Internet is a international networks of the
global system interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that 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 carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such
as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World
Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and peer-to-peer networks for file
sharing.
The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned
by the United States federal
government in the
1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.[1] The primary precursor network, the ARPANET,
initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and
military networks in the 1980s. The funding of the National Science Foundation
Network as a
new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial
extensions, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking
technologies, and the merger of many networks.[2] The linking of commercial networks and
enterprises by the early 1990s marks the beginning of the transition to the
modern Internet,[3] and generated a sustained exponential
growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the network.
Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, the commercialization incorporated its services and technologies
into virtually every aspect of modern life.
Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and
from the late 1990s in the developing
world.[4] In the 20 years since 1995, Internet use
has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, to over one third of
the world
population.[5][6] Most traditional communications media,
including telephony, radio, television, paper mail and newspapers are being
reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet television music,
digital newspapers, and video
streaming websites.
Newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web
feeds and
online news
aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing
segment on the Internet.[citation needed] The Internet has enabled and accelerated
new forms of personal interactions through instant
messaging, Internet
forums, and social networking. Online
shopping has
grown exponentially both for major retailers and small
businesses and entrepreneurs, as it
enables firms to extend their "bricks
and mortar" presence to serve a larger market or even sell
goods and services entirely online. Business-to-business and financial services on the
Internet affect supply
chains across
entire industries.
The Internet has no centralized governance in either
technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent
network sets its own policies.[7] Only the overreaching definitions of the
two principal name
spaces in the
Internet, the Internet
Protocol address space
and the Domain Name System (DNS),
are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and
standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of
loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by
contributing technical expertise.[8]