The Internet

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The Internet

The word Internet stands for International Network. The Internet is a collection of thousands of computer networks throughout the world. The linked networks may be either LANs or WANs, most of them are owned by individual organisations. Some WANs such as CompuServe act as Service Providers.

The Internet has had a relatively brief, but explosive history so far. It grew out of an experiment begun in the 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defence. The Department of Defence wanted to create a computer network that would continue to function in the event of a disaster, such as a nuclear war. If part of the network were damaged or destroyed the rest of the system still had to work.

The Internet is a network of networks that connects computers all over the world. The Internet has its roots in the U.S. military, which funded a network in 1969, called the ARPANET, to connect the computers at some colleges and universities where military research took place. As more and more computers connected, the APARNET was replaced by the NSFNET in1985, which was run by the National Science Foundation. NSFNET is a series of networks for research and education communication. Based on ARPANET protocols, the NSFNET created a national backbone service, provided free to any U.S. research and educational institution. At the same time, regional networks were created to link individual institutions with the national backbone service.

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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 ...

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