Internet

The Internet is accessed by users via a modem to the service provider's hub, which handles all connection requests. Once connected, the user can access a whole range of information from many different sources, including the World Wide Web.

A typical authoring tool, which is used to combine audio and video to create multimedia presentations or pages for the World Wide Web.

Global public computer network that provides the communication infrastructure for applications such as e-mail, the World Wide Web, and FTP. The Internet is not one individual network, but an interconnected system of smaller networks using common protocols to pass packets of information from one computer to another.

Early work on the Internet began in the 1960s at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), in the USA. It was based on theories of packet switching, particularly those of Leonard Kleinrock. In 1967 work by Lawrence Roberts, Vinton Cerf, and Bob Kahn led to the publishing of plans for the ARPANET network. They were put into practice in 1969, when the ARPANET was used to connect four university computers. In 1972 the ARPANET had its first public demonstration at the International Computer Communication Conference. In the same year, Ray Tomlinson designed the first application for this new network: e-mail.

The ARPANET had used a protocol called NCP, but it had compatibility problems. Engineers needed to design protocols that could meet the needs of an open-architecture network. Roberts and Cerf then led the team that created the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), which swiftly became the standard Internet protocol. In 1983 the ARPANET switched from using NCP to TCP/IP, and the network was separated into military (MILNET) and non-military systems. By 1985 the Internet was well established among scientific researchers and developers, and was beginning to be used for daily computer communications. By the early 1990s, access had become cheap enough for domestic users to have their own links on home personal computers.

The impact of the Internet on the economy has been huge. In 2002 Internet-related activities accounted for nearly 10 million jobs. By 2006, it was estimated that there were more than 1 billion Internet users worldwide.

A report published in November 2003 by Nielson NetRatings found that that US Internet users in the over-65 age group accounted for the largest increase in Internet use. Women in this age group increased their Web use by 30% on the previous year, and men by 20%.

In 1999 Internet2 became operational, running on a second network, Abilene, operated by private contractors and providing a high-speed data communications system for 205 US research universities, enabling them to bypass the congestion on the Internet.