History of the Internet

During the mid-1960s the focus of computing began shifting towards Networking and enabling computers to communicate with one another. One of the initiatives underway at the time was the development of the ARPANet by the Department of Defense. This network consisted of multiple computers and multiple connections between them. This redundancy in computers and connections greatly reduced the chances of total network failure should something happen to one of the computers or connections.

The National Science Foundation took over the ARPANet infrastructure during the early 1980s, resulting in the NSFNet network. Slowly, over time, more networks and nodes were included in NSFNet. Today, the former ARPANet and NSFNet infrastructure has become commercialized (moving away from supporting education and research) and is the backbone of today's Internet.

Although there is no single "owner or governing body" of the Internet, there is an organization of researchers that oversees the growth of this global network. The Internet Society (ISOC) leads developments of all things Internet-related. It is also responsible for the Internet Architecture Board that defines rules and standards for Internet operations and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) that looks into the longer-term issues of Internet evolution.

Communication on the Internet is made possible by adhering to one of those rules put forth by the IAB -- that of using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). This is the standard protocol (rules of communication) that allows for communications between computers across a network. Utilizing TCP/IP to "talk" ensures information transmitted between computers on the Internet is done so quickly and reliably.

Given this brief background, we can say that Internet can be defined as a world-wide set of networks that interoperate (work together seamlessly) using the TCP/IP protocol.

Next, we'll take a closer look at the organizations associated with the Internet. Later, we'll look more at the communication across the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Back | Next