Question: How does Internet work?

Sam Geen answered on 16 Nov 2020:

I’m not an expert so this isn’t super detailed. Basically the internet connects computers to each other. Individual people don’t connect directly to the whole internet – instead they connect to an “internet service provider” (ISP) which then connects to other ISPs to send your data or requests for data to other computers. There are different Tiers of providers – Tier 1 is the top level that can connect to every other Tier 1 network in the world. Tier 1 in the UK is companies you can’t buy plans from, but the Tier 2 providers like BT connect you to them and the rest of the internet. There are lower Tiers as well for companies that buy from Tier 2, etc.

Every computer has an address which allows other computers to find you, which is a long number called an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Originally this was just like calling up someone on the phone – when I played games as a teenager, if my parents picked up the phone they’d hear weird data noises and my connection would fail. Eventually special internet connections like fibre optics came in, and of course you can get internet via mobile signals as well as wifi.

Some computers are “clients”, which are like your laptop or phone, and some computers are “servers” which mainly send out data to people, like Google or Amazon’s computers. You can set up a server yourself, if you want to run a website or Minecraft or something.

The internet came together from various people. The way in which computers understand each other was created by people at CERN, the big particle accelerator. The US military also did a lot of work on setting up how the physical parts of the internet work and talk to each other. There were also different internet-likes before the internet became global. Minitel was a similar system in France set up by the French post office and telecom service.