Internet is the world’s largest computer network. The Internet is a network or more precisely ‘Inter-network’ of hundreds of connecting networks made up of different types of computers all over the world that can share messages and information with one another. It was created nearly 30 years ago as a project for the US Department of Defence. The initial goal was to create a network that enables the safe transmission of data between military computers at different sites. From a handful of computers and users in the 1960s, today the internet has grown to thousands of regional networks that connect millions of users. Thus internet has reduced the whole world into a global village.
HISTORY OF INTERNET
The Internet is not a new phenomenon. In 1973, the U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques and technologies for interlinking packet networks of various kinds. The objective was to develop communication protocols which would allow networked computers to communicate transparently across multiple, linked packet networks. This was called the Internetting project and the system of networks which emerged from the research was known as the “Internet.”
Its origin can be traced to an experimental network established with funding from the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defence, to enable the scientists engaged on various military projects to communicate with one another.
Starting in 1965 with four sites in the U.S, it soon grew to ten widely dispersed sites including those in the U.K and Norway. This network was called ARPANET. Electronic mail over the ARPANET was a great success. This has given birth to community network project in the mid 1980’s after defence traffic was moved away from the Arpanet to milnet (Military Network). After that the NSF, the agency of the U.S. Government and other government entities controlled access to the Internet. In its early days, the internet was not used for commercial purposes mainly because it was funded through research grants from the NSF and other government agencies. It was mainly used for technical, academic and scientific research. The main turning point in the history of internet was in 1991, when NSF removed restrictions and allowed commercial traffic into internet.
In April 1995, the U.S. Government further relaxed control of the internet to independent government further relaxed control of the internet to independent governing bodies, which taken away the restrictions for Internet access. Ever since commercial use of internet was allowed, the growth in subscribers and traffic has been phenomenal.
According to Internet Society estimates, the internet now has 30 million users on 10 million computers connected to over 24000 networks in over 100 countries. It is often said that there has been no other technology or innovation in the modern history that comes close to the internet in terms of speed of adoption, significance and impact.
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