NSFNET grew rapidly as people discovered its potential, and as new software applications were created to make access easier. Corporations such as Sprint and MCI began to build their own networks, which they linked, to NSFNET.
By the late 1980s, the Internet had shed its military and research heritage and was available for use by the general public. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) began offering dial-up internet accounts for a monthly fee, giving users access to email, discussion groups, and file transfer. In 1989, the World Wide Web (an Internet-based system of interlinked pages of information) was born, and in the early 1990s the, the combination of email, the Web, and online chat propelled the Internet into national and international prominence. The World Wide Web is what draws most people onto the ‘Net’. A web address contains three w’s at the beginning of it. The www allows users to the ‘Net’ to publish multimedia pages, containing text, graphics, sound and video information.
Each website on the Internet has a unique address, starting with the letters http:// (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol). These Web addresses are known as URLs (Uniform Resource Locators).
Computers connected to the Internet communicate by using the Internet Protocol (IP), which slices information into packets (chunks of data to be transmitted separately) and routes them to their destination. Because the Internet was designed to operate during wars, it uses dynamic routing, so that if even one part of the network is knocked out, packets can be re-routed around the problem.
The hardware and software required to use the Internet are as follows:
- A computer
- An ISDN connection or a modem and telephone
- communications software
- access to an ISP (Internet Service Provider)
For a monthly payment anyone can connect to the Internet via an ISP. This give access to:
- electronic mail (e-mail)
- newsgroups on almost any topic
- files of software, photographs, catalogues, games which can be downloaded to your own hard disk
- electronic shopping and banking
- access to databases all over the via ‘web browser’
The disadvantages to all of this are while the wealthy and educated have the means and knowledge to shop, bank and many features of the internet, an electronic underclass, is denied access to the superhighway society. This could cause problems, some of these could be:
- shopping on the internet will attract fraudsters and thieves
- information about military bases in various countries, and detailed instructions on how to make bombs, are freely available on the Internet
- Paedophilia and other unsavoury material can be downloaded by anyone
- Hackers may also be able to hack into information about different people e.g. they will be able to hack into banks and disrupt accounts.
When the World Wide Web began in 1990, few people suspected how successful and popular it would be. There are now millions of websites with over one billion web pages.
The incubator for some of the emerging technologies that will shape the future is known as Internet2. Internet was formed in 1996 and administered by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID); Internet2 is a partnership of universities, corporations and government agencies. The project’s goals are to create new applications that can’t run over the existing Internet and to develop the infrastructure that supports those applications. Internet2 is not a single network, but a consortium of hundreds of high-speed networks linked by fibre optic backbones that span the U.S. It transmits data 45,000 times faster than a 56-k modem, allowing scientists to test their laboratory discoveries in the real world.
While computers are now the primary means of accessing the Internet, we are already seeing many Internet-enabled devices, such as pagers and mobile phones, which can send and receive email and access the web. Soon everything from your car to your refrigerator may be connected to the network, communicating with each other wirelessly.