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What is the Internet?

Our first lesson will attempt to define the vast telecommunications and information organism that we call the Internet. My premise here is to give you a sense of the size, depth, and incredible growth of networked information and communications. By the end of this lesson, you should have a clear idea of how the Internet started, what components and characteristics it has, and where current growth may be leading it.

What is the Internet?

Defining the Internet is probably a harder task than using it. This is due in part to its tremendous growth and in part to some fine technical points. A recent debate on an Internet training listserv ended just short of blows over what elements to include in the definition and whether to speak of "the Internet" or "the Internets." I promise to avoid anything that will get your ire up as I produce a working definition for us.

An "internet" is a collection of interconnected computer networks. To step back just a bit, a "network" is the physical connection of computers and other devices so that they can exchange information. A simplified network is the one that exists between your computer, your monitor, and your printer. A larger network, called a local-area network (or LAN), might link all the computer workstations in a building so that all could share a single piece of software. If the first LAN, or network of computers, were linked to another LAN in another building on campus, we would have an internet (sometimes also called an "intranet"). In general , the terms "LAN" and "intranet" are synonymous. Connecting intranets or LANs together gives us an "internet."

The Internet, with a capital "I," represents an internet on a worldwide scale. Here, computers and networks from around the globe are linked together so that they can share information. Somewhere around two hundred countries have networks that are connected to the Internet, so there is a great diversity of information available. Our regional network access is provided by Onvoy, a private company created from the formerly quasi-public MRNet (Minnesota Regional Network for Educational Telecommunications). What this means to you and me is that through the medium of the Internet, we have access to a wide array of types of information and many ways to get to it. If you would like to check the online catalog of a university in Spain or want to send a message to a colleague in New Jersey, you can do it via the Net. The Internet, for the individual user, is simply a means to an end. You do not need to understand the technical setup completely to use this medium, but it helps to have a little background. Think of the Internet as an ever-growing organism composed of interconnected networks from around the world.

How the Internet Came to Be

In the late 1960s, the Department of Defense came up with an idea for connecting universities and laboratories that were doing similar types of research. They wanted a system that would let researchers communicate with each other and share research results to increase productivity and end duplication of effort. So, in 1969 four computers in distant parts of the U.S. were linked together in a network called ARPANET. Before long, other computers were added and the network grew rapidly. Over the ensuing twenty-five years, an increased demand for electronic communications caused the formation of other networks. ARPANET itself ceased to exist in 1990 as these other networks took over its duties. Eventually, beginning around 1992 or 1993, you have our current situation, which can be described by discussing four characteristics of the Internet.

The Internet Today: Characteristics

  1. Highly expanded access. Initially, only researchers in certain fields could use the Internet. Now, users of the Internet come from all disciplines and are drawn from beyond academe. The public can now gain access through a variety of service providers and have already established a strong presence on the Net. Conservative estimates place the number of individuals with access to the Net at 30 million worldwide, with some projections predicting 500 million users by the year 2000.
  2. A phenomenal, sustained rate of growth. Just to give you some sense of this growth, let me mention a few numbers on the increase in networks and hosts on the Internet. In July of 1988 there was a total of 217 networks in existence in the world, only nine of which were not located in the U.S. In July of 1994, there were 36,153 total networks with 15,362 located outside this country. If we go a little farther down the hierarchy, we can speak of hosts, or individual computers that put information on and allow access to the Internet. Hosts have increased from 213 in August of 1981 to 2,217,000 in January of 1994. This shows two things. First, exponential growth is occurring on the Internet and has shown no signs of slowing. Second, more networks and hosts mean more people out there and more places to go. This contributes to the potential for information overload.
  3. A philosophy of free access to information. As the Net became accessible to a larger and larger user population, this growth was accompanied by a desire to make existing resources freely available to all. Anyone could participate in discussions, or roam around the host sites, or view electronic documents as they wished. While this culture of free information and free access still predominates on the Net, there is some fear that limitations are on the horizon. One reason for this is that there are now some 15,000 companies registered on the Internet, many of whom are selling access to various online services. Although many of these for-pay sites currently allow free access to entice users, this clearly cannot continue indefinitely. Generally speaking, the Net depends on free access principles that will continue to dominate despite the increase of commercial use.
  4. No central rule-making body or established ownership. While government has footed the bill for much of the Internet infrastructure, there is no outright owner who can make rules and make sure everyone follows them. A hodgepodge of public and private organizations own parts of the Internet and enforce their own policies within their own networks. As you might imagine, it's very hard to get tens of thousands of network groups to agree on a joint policy or to hand over their powers to a single authority. So, it's far more true to say that no one owns the Internet. Someone gets paid to provide institutions and companies with access, but these providers lack central authority and control.

The Internet is the first global forum developed to spread information widely using an electronic medium. Its very purpose causes it to be prone to anarchy. If you dislike this, you're not alone, but there is generally little to fear from the Internet. When problems arise, the community as a whole usually takes steps to address it (such as network security issues). As well, there are groups such as the Internet Society working to create usage guidelines and some general policies of what is and is not acceptable. The real answer to the question of who owns the Internet is that you do. Anyone with an email account and enough knowledge to find their way around owns the Internet as much as the National Science Foundation or IBM or Uncle Sam does. So, I invite you to claim your share...and your responsibility!

Is the Internet the "Information Superhighway"?

Simply put, no. The Information Superhighway about which the media prattles is still in the making and really represents a concept larger than the Internet. Two terms you may hear associated with the Superhighway idea are the NREN (National Research and Education Network) and the NII (National Information Infrastructure which has later come to be called Internet 2). These are programs suggested by the Clinton Administration to improve the existing networks and expand access to every American. The end result of all this would be an even more information-laden Internet that runs faster and connects the whole nation (if not the world). Of course, all of this takes money.

Other options for the Information Superhighway may be coming to fruition from the private sector. Recent shakeups and merger attempts in and between the cable and telephone industries are definite signs of interest in building a data highway. While we can't expect e-mail and video on demand from our television sets just yet, the two industries are jockeying for control of these services. The question of cable or telephone is a coin flip right now, and the FCC is holding the nickel. More to come.

Is the Internet the World Wide Web?

Again, no! The World Wide Web (WWW) is one of many activities which takes place on the Internet, but it is not the Internet. We will discuss how the WWW was invented in another lesson, but suffice it to say that the WWW is different from the Internet in the same way that the car is different from the road.

Conclusion

I hope that this explanation of what the Internet is and where we are with it today has been helpful to you. I think that you will come to appreciate the tremendous possibilities that this medium has to offer to education and global communication. The Internet is a culture and community unto itself and has all the rules and idiosyncrasies of any society. You will be learning this culture and discovering how to speak with the indigenous folk as we move along. I am confident that you will enjoy the corners of the Net that you make your own and the information that you find there. You may not believe me yet, but there truly is something for everyone out there on the Net. I have listed a few sources below that you can use to supplement the definition and history given above.

Suggested Readings and Resources (Several of which are available in the bookstore and in the Augsburg library):

Internet Lessons version 1.5. Copyright of lessons (C) 1999 by Joseph A. Erickson, All Rights Reserved. Permission Granted for Individual Usage.

If you plan to distribute multiple copies of this work, please contact the author.



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