The Athens County Public Libraries are a consortium of seven public libraries located in Athens County, Ohio . The library system was originally known as the Nelsonville Public Library. The original facility in Nelsonville was created in 1935 as an outgrowth of the Nelsonville school system.
127-399: The library system has an inventory of about 300,000 items. In recent years, it has provided computers with Internet connections at its libraries, and this service has been shown to be very popular. Recently, the library system has begun a landscaping program at its libraries to introduce a wider variety of plantings, especially including native trees and shrubs. Before the establishment of
254-461: A 32-bit number. IPv4 is the initial version used on the first generation of the Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed in 1981 to address up to ≈4.3 billion (10 ) hosts. However, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to IPv4 address exhaustion , which entered its final stage in 2011, when the global IPv4 address allocation pool was exhausted. Because of the growth of
381-515: A 4G network. The limits that users face on accessing information via mobile applications coincide with a broader process of fragmentation of the Internet . Fragmentation restricts access to media content and tends to affect the poorest users the most. Zero-rating , the practice of Internet service providers allowing users free connectivity to access specific content or applications without cost, has offered opportunities to surmount economic hurdles but has also been accused by its critics as creating
508-594: A Routing Arbiter (RA) and ultimately made a joint award to the Merit Network and USC's Information Science Institute to act as the RA. To continue its promotion of advanced networking technology the NSF conducted a solicitation to create a very high-speed Backbone Network Service ( vBNS ) which, like NSFNET before it, would focus on providing service to the research and education community. MCI won this award and created
635-482: A 155 Mbit/s ( OC3c ) and later a 622 Mbit/s ( OC12c ) and 2.5 Gbit/s ( OC48c ) ATM network to carry TCP/IP traffic primarily between the supercomputing centers and their users. NSF support was available to organizations that could demonstrate a need for very high speed networking capabilities and wished to connect to the vBNS or to the Abilene Network , the high speed network operated by
762-517: A blog, or building a website involves little initial cost and many cost-free services are available. However, publishing and maintaining large, professional web sites with attractive, diverse and up-to-date information is still a difficult and expensive proposition. Many individuals and some companies and groups use web logs or blogs, which are largely used as easily being able to update online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to communicate advice in their areas of specialization in
889-470: A broad array of electronic, wireless , and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail , telephony , and file sharing . The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources,
1016-626: A collection of documents (web pages) and other web resources linked by hyperlinks and URLs . In the 1960s, computer scientists began developing systems for time-sharing of computer resources. J. C. R. Licklider proposed the idea of a universal network while working at Bolt Beranek & Newman and, later, leading the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of
1143-593: A designated pool of addresses set aside for each region. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration , an agency of the United States Department of Commerce , had final approval over changes to the DNS root zone until the IANA stewardship transition on 1 October 2016. The Internet Society (ISOC) was founded in 1992 with a mission to "assure the open development, evolution and use of
1270-568: A framework known as the Internet protocol suite (also called TCP/IP , based on the first two components.) This is a suite of protocols that are ordered into a set of four conceptional layers by the scope of their operation, originally documented in RFC 1122 and RFC 1123 . At the top is the application layer , where communication is described in terms of the objects or data structures most appropriate for each application. For example,
1397-522: A group including the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications ( NCSA ), Cornell University Theory Center , University of Delaware , and Merit Network . PDP-11/73 minicomputers with routing and management software, called Fuzzballs , served as the network routers since they already implemented the TCP/IP standard. This original 56 kbit/s backbone was overseen by
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#17327905826431524-419: A larger market or even sell goods and services entirely online . Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own policies. The overarching definitions of the two principal name spaces on
1651-493: A library card an alternative to taking the bus or walking to school. Today, the library system consists of these seven branches: Internet The Internet (or internet ) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private , public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by
1778-583: A limited basis, with some of the regional Internet networks. In 1991, the Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX, pronounced "kicks") was created by PSINet, UUNET and CERFnet to provide a location at which multiple networks could exchange traffic free from traffic-based settlements and restrictions imposed by an acceptable use policy. In 1991, a new ISP, ANS CO+RE (commercial plus research), raised concerns and unique questions regarding commercial and non-commercial interoperability policies. ANS CO+RE
1905-559: A more broadly based Board of Directors than the Michigan-based Merit Network. Under its cooperative agreement with NSF, Merit remained ultimately responsible for the operation of NSFNET, but subcontracted much of the engineering and operations work to ANS. Both IBM and MCI made substantial new financial and other commitments to help support the new venture. Allan Weis left IBM to become ANS's first President and Managing Director. Douglas Van Houweling , former Chair of
2032-597: A network into two or more networks is called subnetting . Computers that belong to a subnet are addressed with an identical most-significant bit -group in their IP addresses. This results in the logical division of an IP address into two fields, the network number or routing prefix and the rest field or host identifier . The rest field is an identifier for a specific host or network interface. The routing prefix may be expressed in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation written as
2159-600: A new architecture and the NSFNET fiber optic backbone was decommissioned. At this point the NSFNET regional backbone networks were still central to the infrastructure of the expanding Internet, and there were still other NSFNET programs, but there was no longer a central NSFNET optical networking service. After the transition, network traffic was carried on the NSFNET fiber optic regional backbone networks and any of several commercial backbone networks, internetMCI , PSINet , SprintLink , ANSNet, and others. Traffic between networks
2286-507: A new solicitation to upgrade and expand NSFNET. As a result of a November 1987 NSF award to the Merit Network , a networking consortium by public universities in Michigan , the original 56 kbit/s network was expanded to include 13 nodes interconnected at 1.5 Mbit/s ( T-1 ) by July 1988. Additional links were added to form a multi-path network, and a node located in Atlanta
2413-488: A node on a different subnetwork. Routing tables are maintained by manual configuration or automatically by routing protocols . End-nodes typically use a default route that points toward an ISP providing transit, while ISP routers use the Border Gateway Protocol to establish the most efficient routing across the complex connections of the global Internet. The default gateway is the node that serves as
2540-585: A non-NSFNET attached network provider. In either case the situation was confusing and inefficient. It prevented economies of scale, increased costs, or both. And this slowed the growth of the Internet and its adoption by new classes of users, something no one was happy about. In 1988, Vint Cerf , then at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), proposed to the Federal Networking Council (FNC) and to MCI to interconnect
2667-509: A number of questions, and received written statements from all seven as well as from three others. At the end of the hearing, speaking to the two witnesses from NSF, Dr. Nico Habermann , Assistant NSF Director for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE), and Dr. Stephen Wolff , Director of NSF's Division of Networking & Communications Research & Infrastructure (DNCRI), Representative Boucher , Chairman of
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#17327905826432794-656: A part of the city previously serviced by the University system. During the 1970s through 1990s an addition three library branches were opened throughout Athens. These were the Wells library, the Coolville library, and The Plains library. With their inclusion the size of the system grew to its current seven branches. Starting in 2013 the library system successfully received $ 17,400 in funding to begin offering bikes for student use. The program, "Book-a-Bike" allows students with
2921-583: A result, there was at times serious congestion on the overloaded T-1 backbone. Following the transition to T-3, portions of the T-1 backbone were left in place to act as a backup for the new T-3 backbone. In anticipation of the T-3 upgrade and the approaching end of the 5-year NSFNET cooperative agreement, in September 1990 Merit, IBM, and MCI formed Advanced Network and Services (ANS), a new non-profit corporation with
3048-593: A shorthand for internetwork in RFC 675 , and later RFCs repeated this use. Cerf and Kahn credit Louis Pouzin and others with important influences on the resulting TCP/IP design. National PTTs and commercial providers developed the X.25 standard and deployed it on public data networks . Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded
3175-470: A sign of future growth, 15 sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing . Thereafter, the ARPANET gradually developed into a decentralized communications network, connecting remote centers and military bases in the United States. Other user networks and research networks, such as
3302-490: A time ANS CO+RE refused to connect to the CIX and the CIX refused to purchase a connection to ANS CO+RE. In May 1992 Mitch Kapor and Al Weis forged an agreement where ANS would connect to the CIX as a "trial" with the ability to disconnect at a moment's notice and without the need to join the CIX as a member. This compromise resolved things for a time, but later the CIX started to block access from regional networks that had not paid
3429-509: A time this state of affairs kept the networking community as a whole from fully implementing the vision for the Internet as a worldwide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks allowing any connected site to communicate with any other connected site. These issues would not be fully resolved until a new network architecture was developed and the NSFNET Backbone Service was turned off in 1995. The NSFNET Backbone Service
3556-462: A trained librarian, and the cataloging of the books under one roof. By 1939 the library moved again and began converting the old library stations (now unused) into branch libraries. By the end of 1939 the system consisted of one library with two branches and five deposit stations. A bookmobile was also started with county budget funds which visited the county schools. In 1940 the Athens branch opened in
3683-596: A two-tiered Internet. To address the issues with zero-rating, an alternative model has emerged in the concept of 'equal rating' and is being tested in experiments by Mozilla and Orange in Africa. Equal rating prevents prioritization of one type of content and zero-rates all content up to a specified data cap. In a study published by Chatham House , 15 out of 19 countries researched in Latin America had some kind of hybrid or zero-rated product offered. Some countries in
3810-466: A vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to printed media, books, encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled the decentralization of information on a large scale. The Web has enabled individuals and organizations to publish ideas and information to a potentially large audience online at greatly reduced expense and time delay. Publishing a web page,
3937-696: A web browser operates in a client–server application model and exchanges information with the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and an application-germane data structure, such as the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Below this top layer, the transport layer connects applications on different hosts with a logical channel through the network. It provides this service with a variety of possible characteristics, such as ordered, reliable delivery (TCP), and an unreliable datagram service (UDP). Underlying these layers are
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4064-581: A wide variety of other Internet software may be installed from app stores . Internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop worldwide for the first time in October 2016. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that, by the end of 2017, 48% of individual users regularly connect to the Internet, up from 34% in 2012. Mobile Internet connectivity has played an important role in expanding access in recent years, especially in Asia and
4191-547: Is a global network that comprises many voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing body. The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols ( IPv4 and IPv6 ) is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. To maintain interoperability,
4318-399: Is a large address block with 2 addresses, having a 32-bit routing prefix. For IPv4, a network may also be characterized by its subnet mask or netmask , which is the bitmask that when applied by a bitwise AND operation to any IP address in the network, yields the routing prefix. Subnet masks are also expressed in dot-decimal notation like an address. For example, 255.255.255.0 is
4445-473: Is by a non-profit college, university, K-12 school, or library. While these AUP provisions seem reasonable, in some specific cases, they often proved difficult to interpret and enforce. NSF did not monitor the content of traffic that was sent over NSFNET or actively police the use of the network. Further, NSF did not require Merit or the regional networks to do so. NSF, Merit, and the regional networks did investigate possible cases of inappropriate use, when such use
4572-494: Is necessary to allocate address space efficiently. Subnetting may also enhance routing efficiency or have advantages in network management when subnetworks are administratively controlled by different entities in a larger organization. Subnets may be arranged logically in a hierarchical architecture, partitioning an organization's network address space into a tree-like routing structure. Computers and routers use routing tables in their operating system to direct IP packets to reach
4699-532: Is not directly interoperable by design with IPv4. In essence, it establishes a parallel version of the Internet not directly accessible with IPv4 software. Thus, translation facilities must exist for internetworking or nodes must have duplicate networking software for both networks. Essentially all modern computer operating systems support both versions of the Internet Protocol. Network infrastructure, however, has been lagging in this development. Aside from
4826-406: Is often accessed through high-performance content delivery networks . The World Wide Web is a global collection of documents , images , multimedia , applications, and other resources, logically interrelated by hyperlinks and referenced with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), which provide a global system of named references. URIs symbolically identify services, web servers , databases, and
4953-555: The Oxford English Dictionary found that, based on a study of around 2.5 billion printed and online sources, "Internet" was capitalized in 54% of cases. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably; it is common to speak of "going on the Internet" when using a web browser to view web pages . However, the World Wide Web , or the Web , is only one of a large number of Internet services,
5080-1050: The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) for North America , the Asia–Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) for Asia and the Pacific region , the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) for Latin America and the Caribbean region, and the Réseaux IP Européens – Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) for Europe , the Middle East , and Central Asia were delegated to assign IP address blocks and other Internet parameters to local registries, such as Internet service providers , from
5207-984: The Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was standardized, which facilitated worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks. TCP/IP network access expanded again in 1986 when the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet) provided access to supercomputer sites in the United States for researchers, first at speeds of 56 kbit/s and later at 1.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. The NSFNet expanded into academic and research organizations in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in 1988–89. Although other network protocols such as UUCP and PTT public data networks had global reach well before this time, this marked
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5334-474: The HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser (which was also an HTML editor and could access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd ), the first web server , and the first Web pages that described the project itself. In 1991 the Commercial Internet eXchange was founded, allowing PSInet to communicate with the other commercial networks CERFnet and Alternet. Stanford Federal Credit Union
5461-495: The International Network Working Group and commercial initiatives led to the development of various protocols and standards by which multiple separate networks could become a single network or "a network of networks". In 1974, Vint Cerf at Stanford University and Bob Kahn at DARPA published a proposal for "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication". They used the term internet as
5588-423: The Merit Network and CYCLADES , were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Early international collaborations for the ARPANET were rare. Connections were made in 1973 to Norway ( NORSAR and NDRE ), and to Peter Kirstein's research group at University College London (UCL), which provided a gateway to British academic networks , forming the first internetwork for resource sharing . ARPA projects,
5715-539: The United States and in the United Kingdom and France . The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing . The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in
5842-425: The $ 10,000 fee to become members of the CIX. Meanwhile, Congress passed its Scientific and Advanced-Technology Act of 1992 that formally permitted NSF to connect to commercial networks in support of research and education. The creation of ANS CO+RE and its initial refusal to connect to the CIX was one of the factors that lead to the controversy described later in this article . Other issues had to do with: For
5969-507: The AUP is that it cites acceptable uses of the network that are not directly related to who or what type of organization is making that use. Use from for-profit organizations is acceptable when it is in support of open research and education. Additionally, some uses, such as fundraising, advertising, public relations activities, extensive personal or private use, for-profit consulting, and all illegal activities were never acceptable, even when that use
6096-527: The Internet , which still exists, evolved as one of its largest critics. Other writers, such as Chetly Zarko, a University of Michigan alumnus and freelance investigative writer, offered their own critiques. On March 12, 1992 the Subcommittee on Science of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives , held a hearing to review the management of NSFNET. Witnesses at
6223-579: The Internet and the depletion of available IPv4 addresses , a new version of IP IPv6 , was developed in the mid-1990s, which provides vastly larger addressing capabilities and more efficient routing of Internet traffic. IPv6 uses 128 bits for the IP address and was standardized in 1998. IPv6 deployment has been ongoing since the mid-2000s and is currently in growing deployment around the world, since Internet address registries ( RIRs ) began to urge all resource managers to plan rapid adoption and conversion. IPv6
6350-685: The Internet are contained in specially designated RFCs that constitute the Internet Standards . Other less rigorous documents are simply informative, experimental, or historical, or document the best current practices (BCP) when implementing Internet technologies. The Internet carries many applications and services , most prominently the World Wide Web, including social media , electronic mail , mobile applications , multiplayer online games , Internet telephony , file sharing , and streaming media services. Most servers that provide these services are today hosted in data centers , and content
6477-444: The Internet can then be accessed from places such as a park bench. Experiments have also been conducted with proprietary mobile wireless networks like Ricochet , various high-speed data services over cellular networks, and fixed wireless services. Modern smartphones can also access the Internet through the cellular carrier network. For Web browsing, these devices provide applications such as Google Chrome , Safari , and Firefox and
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#17327905826436604-618: The Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world" . Its members include individuals (anyone may join) as well as corporations, organizations , governments, and universities. Among other activities ISOC provides an administrative home for a number of less formally organized groups that are involved in developing and managing the Internet, including: the IETF, Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), and Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG). On 16 November 2005,
6731-444: The Internet model is the Internet Protocol (IP). IP enables internetworking and, in essence, establishes the Internet itself. Two versions of the Internet Protocol exist, IPv4 and IPv6 . For locating individual computers on the network, the Internet provides IP addresses . IP addresses are used by the Internet infrastructure to direct internet packets to their destinations. They consist of fixed-length numbers, which are found within
6858-514: The Internet via local computer networks. Hotspots providing such access include Wi-Fi cafés, where users need to bring their own wireless devices, such as a laptop or PDA . These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks . Commercial Wi-Fi services that cover large areas are available in many cities, such as New York , London , Vienna , Toronto , San Francisco , Philadelphia , Chicago and Pittsburgh , where
6985-711: The Internet was included on USA Today ' s list of the New Seven Wonders . The word internetted was used as early as 1849, meaning interconnected or interwoven . The word Internet was used in 1945 by the United States War Department in a radio operator's manual, and in 1974 as the shorthand form of Internetwork. Today, the term Internet most commonly refers to the global system of interconnected computer networks , though it may also refer to any group of smaller networks. When it came into common use, most publications treated
7112-451: The Internet when needed to perform a function or obtain information, represent the bottom of the routing hierarchy. At the top of the routing hierarchy are the tier 1 networks , large telecommunication companies that exchange traffic directly with each other via very high speed fiber-optic cables and governed by peering agreements. Tier 2 and lower-level networks buy Internet transit from other providers to reach at least some parties on
7239-711: The Internet, the Internet Protocol address (IP address) space and the Domain Name System (DNS), are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. In November 2006,
7366-760: The Merit Network Board and Vice Provost for Information Technology at the University of Michigan , was Chairman of the ANS Board of Directors. The new T-3 backbone was named ANSNet and provided the physical infrastructure used by Merit to deliver the NSFNET Backbone Service. In addition to the five NSF supercomputer centers (which operated regional networks, e.g., SDSCnet and NCSAnet ), NSFNET provided connectivity to eleven regional networks and through these networks to many smaller regional and campus networks. The NSFNET regional networks were: The NSF's appropriations act authorized NSF to "foster and support
7493-460: The NAPs, but in either case they would need to pay for their own connection infrastructure. NSF provided some funding for the NAPs and interim funding to help the regional networks make the transition, but did not fund the new commercial backbone networks directly. To help ensure the stability of the Internet during and immediately after the transition from NSFNET, NSF conducted a solicitation to select
7620-421: The NSF removed access restrictions and the commercial ISP business grew rapidly. Following the deployment of the Computer Science Network (CSNET), a network that provided Internet services to academic computer science departments, in 1981, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) aimed to create an academic research network facilitating access by researchers to the supercomputing centers funded by NSF in
7747-418: The NSFNET and Europe was installed between Cornell University and CERN , allowing much more robust communications than were capable with satellites. Later in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee began writing WorldWideWeb , the first web browser , after two years of lobbying CERN management. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9,
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#17327905826437874-559: The NSFNET backbone supported the OSI Connectionless Network Protocol (CLNP) in addition to TCP/IP. However, CLNP usage remained low when compared to TCP/IP. Traffic on the network continued its rapid growth, doubling every seven months. Projections indicated that the T-1 backbone would become overloaded sometime in 1990. A critical routing technology, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), originated during this period of Internet history. BGP allowed routers on
8001-433: The NSFNET backbone to differentiate routes originally learned via multiple paths. Prior to BGP, interconnection between IP network was inherently hierarchical, and careful planning was needed to avoid routing loops. BGP turned the Internet into a meshed topology, moving away from the centric architecture which the ARPANET emphasized. During 1991, an upgraded backbone built with 45 Mbit/s ( T-3 ) transmission circuits
8128-788: The NSFNET. Three new nodes were added as part of the upgrade to T-3: NEARNET in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Argone National Laboratory outside of Chicago; and SURAnet in Atlanta, Georgia. NSFNET connected to other federal government networks including the NASA Science Internet, the Energy Science Network ( ESnet ), and others. Connections were also established to research and education networks in other countries starting in 1988 with Canada, France, NORDUnet (serving Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden),
8255-1027: The Netherlands, and many other countries in subsequent years. Two Federal Internet Exchanges (FIXes) were established in June 1989 under the auspices of the Federal Engineering Planning Group (FEPG). FIX East, at the University of Maryland in College Park and FIX West, at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California . The existence of NSFNET and the FIXes allowed the ARPANET to be phased out in mid-1990. Starting in August 1990
8382-507: The Pacific and in Africa. The number of unique mobile cellular subscriptions increased from 3.9 billion in 2012 to 4.8 billion in 2016, two-thirds of the world's population, with more than half of subscriptions located in Asia and the Pacific. The number of subscriptions was predicted to rise to 5.7 billion users in 2020. As of 2018 , 80% of the world's population were covered by
8509-861: The UK's national research and education network , JANET . Common methods of Internet access by users include dial-up with a computer modem via telephone circuits, broadband over coaxial cable , fiber optics or copper wires, Wi-Fi , satellite , and cellular telephone technology (e.g. 3G , 4G ). The Internet may often be accessed from computers in libraries and Internet cafés . Internet access points exist in many public places such as airport halls and coffee shops. Various terms are used, such as public Internet kiosk , public access terminal , and Web payphone . Many hotels also have public terminals that are usually fee-based. These terminals are widely accessed for various usages, such as ticket booking, bank deposit, or online payment . Wi-Fi provides wireless access to
8636-826: The United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis established the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to discuss Internet-related issues. The communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components and a system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture. As with any computer network, the Internet physically consists of routers , media (such as cabling and radio links), repeaters, modems etc. However, as an example of internetworking , many of
8763-672: The United States Department of Defense (DoD). Research into packet switching , one of the fundamental Internet technologies, started in the work of Paul Baran at RAND in the early 1960s and, independently, Donald Davies at the United Kingdom's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in 1965. After the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in 1967, packet switching from the proposed NPL network and routing concepts proposed by Baran were incorporated into
8890-411: The United States surpassed those of cable television and nearly exceeded those of broadcast television . Many common online advertising practices are controversial and increasingly subject to regulation. When the Web developed in the 1990s, a typical web page was stored in completed form on a web server, formatted in HTML , ready for transmission to a web browser in response to a request. Over time,
9017-425: The United States. In 1985, NSF began funding the creation of five new supercomputing centers: Also in 1985, under the leadership of Dennis Jennings , the NSF established the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). NSFNET was to be a general-purpose research network, a hub to connect the five supercomputing centers along with the NSF-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to each other and to
9144-679: The University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development ( UCAID , aka Internet2 ). At the February 1994 regional techs meeting in San Diego, the group revised its charter to include a broader base of network service providers, and subsequently adopted North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) as its new name. Elise Gerich and Mark Knopper were the founders of NANOG and its first coordinators, followed by Bill Norton, Craig Labovitz , and Susan Harris. For much of
9271-626: The WPA were the first librarians and various organizations and townspeople donated books to first fill the shelves. In September 1935 around a thousand books were borrowed from the State Traveling library and in December $ 200 donated from the State Aid for Libraries fund. Still spread across multiple WPA libraries, the entire collection moved to Washington street in 1936 allowing the hiring of
9398-418: The architectural design of the Internet software systems has been assumed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF conducts standard-setting work groups, open to any individual, about the various aspects of Internet architecture. The resulting contributions and standards are published as Request for Comments (RFC) documents on the IETF web site. The principal methods of networking that enable
9525-412: The beginning of the Internet as an intercontinental network. Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) emerged in 1989 in the United States and Australia. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. Steady advances in semiconductor technology and optical networking created new economic opportunities for commercial involvement in the expansion of the network in its core and for delivering services to
9652-456: The bottom of the architecture is the link layer , which connects nodes on the same physical link, and contains protocols that do not require routers for traversal to other links. The protocol suite does not explicitly specify hardware methods to transfer bits, or protocols to manage such hardware, but assumes that appropriate technology is available. Examples of that technology include Wi-Fi , Ethernet , and DSL . The most prominent component of
9779-473: The commercial MCI Mail system to NSFNET. MCI provided funding and FNC provided permission and in the summer of 1989, this linkage was made. In effect, the FNC permitted experimental use of the NSFNET backbone to carry commercial email traffic into and out of the NSFNET. Other email providers such as Telenet 's Telemail, Tymnet 's OnTyme and CompuServe also obtained permission to establish experimental gateways for
9906-455: The complex array of physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is facilitated by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts, e.g., peering agreements , and by technical specifications or protocols that describe the exchange of data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is defined by its interconnections and routing policies. A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network . The practice of dividing
10033-546: The county library the Works Progress Administration maintained twenty library stations throughout the county. These libraries usually consisted of small collections and untrained staff, but demonstrated a need in the county for a dedicated public library. On June 1, 1935 the idea for a public library was conceived under the name The Public Library for the City of Nelsonville and Athens County. Staff from
10160-501: The design of the ARPANET , an experimental resource sharing network proposed by ARPA. ARPANET development began with two network nodes which were interconnected between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) on 29 October 1969. The third site was at the University of California, Santa Barbara , followed by the University of Utah . In
10287-438: The development and use of computer and other scientific and engineering methods and technologies, primarily for research and education in the sciences and engineering." This allowed NSF to support NSFNET and related networking initiatives, but only to the extent that that support was " primarily for research and education in the sciences and engineering ." And this in turn was taken to mean that use of NSFNET for commercial purposes
10414-528: The development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication . The set of rules ( communication protocols ) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across
10541-434: The development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite . The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web , marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal , and mobile computers were connected to
10668-594: The documents and resources that they can provide. HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the main access protocol of the World Wide Web. Web services also use HTTP for communication between software systems for information transfer, sharing and exchanging business data and logistics and is one of many languages or protocols that can be used for communication on the Internet. World Wide Web browser software, such as Microsoft 's Internet Explorer / Edge , Mozilla Firefox , Opera , Apple 's Safari , and Google Chrome , enable users to navigate from one web page to another via
10795-485: The first address of a network, followed by a slash character ( / ), and ending with the bit-length of the prefix. For example, 198.51.100.0 / 24 is the prefix of the Internet Protocol version 4 network starting at the given address, having 24 bits allocated for the network prefix, and the remaining 8 bits reserved for host addressing. Addresses in the range 198.51.100.0 to 198.51.100.255 belong to this network. The IPv6 address specification 2001:db8:: / 32
10922-429: The forwarding host (router) to other networks when no other route specification matches the destination IP address of a packet. While the hardware components in the Internet infrastructure can often be used to support other software systems, it is the design and the standardization process of the software that characterizes the Internet and provides the foundation for its scalability and success. The responsibility for
11049-603: The global Internet, though they may also engage in peering. An ISP may use a single upstream provider for connectivity, or implement multihoming to achieve redundancy and load balancing. Internet exchange points are major traffic exchanges with physical connections to multiple ISPs. Large organizations, such as academic institutions, large enterprises, and governments, may perform the same function as ISPs, engaging in peering and purchasing transit on behalf of their internal networks. Research networks tend to interconnect with large subnetworks such as GEANT , GLORIAD , Internet2 , and
11176-460: The hearing were asked to focus on the agreement(s) that NSF put in place for the operation of the NSFNET backbone, the foundation's plan for recompetition of those agreements, and to help the subcommittee explore whether the NSF's policies provided a level playing field for network service providers, ensured that the network was responsive to user needs, and provided for effective network management. The subcommittee heard from seven witnesses, asked them
11303-661: The hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information and be attracted to the corporation as a result. Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and e-commerce , which is the sale of products and services directly via the Web, continues to grow. Online advertising is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising . In 2011, Internet advertising revenues in
11430-505: The hyperlinks embedded in the documents. These documents may also contain any combination of computer data , including graphics, sounds, text , video , multimedia and interactive content that runs while the user is interacting with the page. Client-side software can include animations, games , office applications and scientific demonstrations. Through keyword -driven Internet research using search engines like Yahoo! , Bing and Google , users worldwide have easy, instant access to
11557-485: The late 1990s, it was estimated that traffic on the public Internet grew by 100 percent per year, while the mean annual growth in the number of Internet users was thought to be between 20% and 50%. This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over
11684-571: The lead organization in a partnership that included IBM , MCI , and the State of Michigan . Merit provided overall project coordination, network design and engineering, a Network Operations Center (NOC), and information services to assist the regional networks. IBM provided equipment, software development, installation, maintenance and operations support. MCI provided the T-1 data circuits at reduced rates. The state of Michigan provided funding for facilities and personnel. Eric M. Aupperle, Merit's President,
11811-462: The network nodes are not necessarily Internet equipment per se. The internet packets are carried by other full-fledged networking protocols with the Internet acting as a homogeneous networking standard, running across heterogeneous hardware, with the packets guided to their destinations by IP routers. Internet service providers (ISPs) establish the worldwide connectivity between individual networks at various levels of scope. End-users who only access
11938-412: The network. As of 31 March 2011 , the estimated total number of Internet users was 2.095 billion (30% of world population ). It is estimated that in 1993 the Internet carried only 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunication . By 2000 this figure had grown to 51%, and by 2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was carried over the Internet. The Internet
12065-1058: The network. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life. Most traditional communication media, including telephone , radio , television , paper mail, and newspapers, are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email , Internet telephone , Internet television , online music , digital newspapers, and video streaming websites. Newspapers, books, and other print publishing have adapted to website technology or have been reshaped into blogging , web feeds , and online news aggregators . The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through instant messaging , Internet forums , and social networking services . Online shopping has grown exponentially for major retailers, small businesses , and entrepreneurs , as it enables firms to extend their " brick and mortar " presence to serve
12192-414: The networking technologies that interconnect networks at their borders and exchange traffic across them. The Internet layer implements the Internet Protocol (IP) which enables computers to identify and locate each other by IP address and route their traffic via intermediate (transit) networks. The Internet Protocol layer code is independent of the type of network that it is physically running over. At
12319-601: The networks and creating the Internet: Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet: Examples of Internet services: The National Science Foundation Network ( NSFNET ) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The program created several nationwide backbone computer networks in support of these initiatives. It
12446-481: The packet. IP addresses are generally assigned to equipment either automatically via DHCP , or are configured. However, the network also supports other addressing systems. Users generally enter domain names (e.g. "en.wikipedia.org") instead of IP addresses because they are easier to remember; they are converted by the Domain Name System (DNS) into IP addresses which are more efficient for routing purposes. Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) defines an IP address as
12573-514: The period from 1987 to 1995, following the opening up of the Internet through NSFNET and in particular after the creation of the for-profit ANS CO+RE in May 1991, some Internet stakeholders were concerned over the effects of privatization and the manner in which ANS, IBM, and MCI received a perceived competitive advantage in leveraging federal research money to gain ground in fields in which other companies allegedly were more competitive. The Cook Report on
12700-435: The principal name spaces of the Internet are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is governed by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and other non-commercial communities. ICANN coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers for use on the Internet, including domain names , IP addresses, application port numbers in
12827-472: The principal Internet backbone starting in the Summer of 1986, when MIDnet , the first NSFNET regional backbone network became operational. By 1988, in addition to the five NSF supercomputer centers, NSFNET included connectivity to the regional networks BARRNet, JVNCNet, Merit/MichNet , MIDnet, NCAR, NorthWestNet, NYSERNet, SESQUINET, SURAnet, and Westnet, which in turn connected about 170 additional networks to
12954-586: The process of creating and serving web pages has become dynamic, creating a flexible design, layout, and content. Websites are often created using content management software with, initially, very little content. Contributors to these systems, who may be paid staff, members of an organization or the public, fill underlying databases with content using editing pages designed for that purpose while casual visitors view and read this content in HTML form. There may or may not be editorial, approval and security systems built into
13081-539: The process of taking newly entered content and making it available to the target visitors. Email is an important communications service available via the Internet. The concept of sending electronic text messages between parties, analogous to mailing letters or memos, predates the creation of the Internet. Pictures, documents, and other files are sent as email attachments . Email messages can be cc-ed to multiple email addresses . National Science Foundation Network Early research and development: Merging
13208-442: The public. In mid-1989, MCI Mail and Compuserve established connections to the Internet, delivering email and public access products to the half million users of the Internet. Just months later, on 1 January 1990, PSInet launched an alternate Internet backbone for commercial use; one of the networks that added to the core of the commercial Internet of later years. In March 1990, the first high-speed T1 (1.5 Mbit/s) link between
13335-469: The region had a handful of plans to choose from (across all mobile network operators) while others, such as Colombia , offered as many as 30 pre-paid and 34 post-paid plans. A study of eight countries in the Global South found that zero-rated data plans exist in every country, although there is a great range in the frequency with which they are offered and actually used in each. The study looked at
13462-514: The regional research and education networks that would in turn connect campus networks. Using this three tier network architecture NSFNET would provide access between the supercomputer centers and other sites over the backbone network at no cost to the centers or to the regional networks using the open TCP/IP protocols initially deployed successfully on the ARPANET . The NSFNET initiated operations in 1986 using TCP/IP . Its six backbone sites were interconnected with leased 56- kbit/s links, built by
13589-590: The rise of near-instant communication by email, instant messaging , telephony ( Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP), two-way interactive video calls , and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums , blogs, social networking services , and online shopping sites. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, or more. The Internet continues to grow, driven by ever-greater amounts of online information and knowledge, commerce, entertainment and social networking services. During
13716-418: The same purpose at about the same time. The interesting side effect of these links to NSFNET was that the users of the heretofore disconnected commercial email services were able to exchange email with one another via the Internet. Coincidentally, three commercial Internet service providers emerged in the same general time period: AlterNet (built by UUNET ), PSINet and CERFnet . During the period when NSFNET
13843-577: The softbound "Internet Manager's Phonebook" which listed the contact information for every issued domain name and IP address in 1990. Incidentally, Ed Krol also authored the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet to help users of the NSFNET understand its capabilities. The Hitchhiker's Guide became one of the first help manuals for the Internet . As regional networks grew the 56 kbit/s NSFNET backbone experienced rapid increases in network traffic and became seriously congested. In June 1987 NSF issued
13970-452: The subnet mask for the prefix 198.51.100.0 / 24 . Traffic is exchanged between subnetworks through routers when the routing prefixes of the source address and the destination address differ. A router serves as a logical or physical boundary between the subnets. The benefits of subnetting an existing network vary with each deployment scenario. In the address allocation architecture of the Internet using CIDR and in large organizations, it
14097-495: The supercomputer centers themselves with the lead taken by Ed Krol at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign . PDP-11/73 Fuzzball routers were configured and run by Hans-Werner Braun at the Merit Network and statistics were collected by Cornell University . Support for NSFNET end-users was provided by the NSF Network Service Center (NNSC), located at BBN Technologies and included publishing
14224-462: The top three to five carriers by market share in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru and Philippines. Across the 181 plans examined, 13 percent were offering zero-rated services. Another study, covering Ghana , Kenya , Nigeria and South Africa , found Facebook 's Free Basics and Misplaced Pages Zero to be the most commonly zero-rated content. The Internet standards describe
14351-405: The transport protocols, and many other parameters. Globally unified name spaces are essential for maintaining the global reach of the Internet. This role of ICANN distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body for the global Internet. Regional Internet registries (RIRs) were established for five regions of the world. The African Network Information Center (AfriNIC) for Africa ,
14478-462: The use was not extensive. The prohibition on commercial use of the NSFNET backbone meant that some organizations could not connect to the Internet via regional networks that were connected to the NSFNET backbone, while to be fully connected other organizations (or regional networks on their behalf), including some non-profit research and educational institutions, would need to obtain two connections, one to an NSFNET attached regional network and one to
14605-455: The volume of Internet traffic started experiencing similar characteristics as that of the scaling of MOS transistors , exemplified by Moore's law , doubling every 18 months. This growth, formalized as Edholm's law , was catalyzed by advances in MOS technology , laser light wave systems, and noise performance. Since 1995, the Internet has tremendously impacted culture and commerce, including
14732-533: The word Internet as a capitalized proper noun ; this has become less common. This reflects the tendency in English to capitalize new terms and move them to lowercase as they become familiar. The word is sometimes still capitalized to distinguish the global internet from smaller networks, though many publications, including the AP Stylebook since 2016, recommend the lowercase form in every case. In 2016,
14859-488: Was not allowed. To ensure that NSF support was used appropriately, NSF developed the NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that outlined in broad terms the uses of NSFNET that were and were not allowed. The AUP was revised several times to make it clearer and to allow the broadest possible use of NSFNET, consistent with Congress' wishes as expressed in the appropriations act. A notable feature of
14986-475: Was added. Each of the backbone nodes was a router called the Nodal Switching System (NSS). The NSSes were a collection of multiple (typically nine) IBM RT PC systems connected by a Token Ring local area network . The RT PCs ran AOS , IBM's version of Berkeley UNIX , and was dedicated to a particular packet processing task. Under its cooperative agreement with NSF the Merit Network was
15113-421: Was being established, Internet service providers that allowed commercial traffic began to emerge, such as Alternet, PSINet , CERFNet, and others. The commercial networks in many cases were interconnected to the NSFNET and routed traffic over the NSFNET nominally accordingly to the NSFNET acceptable use policy Additionally, these early commercial networks often directly interconnected with each other as well as, on
15240-462: Was brought to their attention. An example may help to illustrate the problem. Is it acceptable for a parent to exchange e-mail with a child enrolled at a college or university, if that exchange uses the NSFNET backbone? It would be acceptable, if the subject of the e-mail was the student's instruction or a research project. Even if the subject was not instruction or research, the e-mail still might be acceptable as private or personal business as long as
15367-471: Was created to link researchers to the NSF-funded supercomputing centers. Later, with additional public funding and also with private industry partnerships, the network developed into a major part of the Internet backbone . The National Science Foundation permitted only government agencies and universities to use the network until 1989 when the first commercial Internet service provider emerged. By 1991,
15494-493: Was deployed to interconnect 16 nodes. The routers on the upgraded backbone were IBM RS/6000 servers running AIX UNIX. Core nodes were located at MCI facilities with end nodes at the connected regional networks and supercomputing centers. Completed in November 1991, the transition from T-1 to T-3 did not go as smoothly as the previous transition from 56 kbit/s DDS to 1.5 mbit/s T-1, as it took longer than planned. As
15621-524: Was exchanged at four Network Access Points or NAPs. Competitively established, and initially funded by NSF, the NAPs were located in New York (actually New Jersey), Washington, D.C., Chicago, and San Jose and run by Sprint , MFS Datanet, Ameritech , and Pacific Bell . The NAPs were the forerunners of modern Internet exchange points . The NSFNET regional backbone networks could connect to any of their newer peer commercial backbone networks or directly to
15748-426: Was primarily used by academic and educational entities, and was a transitional network bridging the era of the ARPANET and CSNET into the modern Internet of today. With its success, the "federally-funded backbone" model gave way to a vision of commercially operated networks operating together to which the users purchased access. On April 30, 1995, the NSFNET Backbone Service had been successfully transitioned to
15875-548: Was the NSFNET Project Director, and Hans-Werner Braun was Co-Principal Investigator. From 1987 to 1994, Merit organized a series of "Regional-Techs" meetings, where technical staff from the regional networks met to discuss operational issues of common concern with each other and the Merit engineering staff. During this period, but separate from its support for the NSFNET backbone, NSF funded: The NSFNET became
16002-558: Was the first financial institution to offer online Internet banking services to all of its members in October 1994. In 1996, OP Financial Group , also a cooperative bank , became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe. By 1995, the Internet was fully commercialized in the U.S. when the NSFNet was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic. As technology advanced and commercial opportunities fueled reciprocal growth,
16129-505: Was the for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Advanced Network and Services (ANS) that had been created earlier by the NSFNET partners, Merit, IBM, and MCI. ANS CO+RE was created specifically to allow commercial traffic on ANSNet without jeopardizing its parent's non-profit status or violating any tax laws. The NSFNET Backbone Service and ANS CO+RE both used and shared the common ANSNet infrastructure. NSF agreed to allow ANS CO+RE to carry commercial traffic subject to several conditions: For
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