High Speed Internet Service

High Speed Internet Service

INTRODUCTION

The Internet is a global network of computers.

There are many different types of computers on

the Internet – PCs, Macintoshes, and others – and

many of these computers are parts of smaller

networks, which are also just as varied. The Internet

is based upon a common language that

allows all these computers to talk to each other.

USES OF THE INTERNET

Companies, individuals, and institutions use the Internet in many ways. Companies use the Internet for electronic commerce, also called e-commerce, including advertising, selling, buying, distributing products, and providing customer service. In addition, companies use the Internet for business-to-business transactions, such as exchanging financial information and accessing complex databases. Businesses and institutions use the Internet for voice and video conferencing and other forms of communication that enable people to telecommute (work away from the office using a computer). The use of electronic mail (e-mail) speeds communication between companies, among coworkers, and among other individuals. Media and entertainment companies use the Internet for online news and weather services and to broadcast audio and video, including live radio and television programs. Online chat allows people to carry on discussions using written text. Instant messaging enables people to exchange text messages in real time. Scientists and scholars use the Internet to communicate with colleagues, perform research, distribute lecture notes and course materials to students, and publish papers and articles. Individuals use the Internet for communication, entertainment, finding information, and buying and selling goods and services.

The Internet can also be used to transfer telephone calls using an application known as IP-telephony. This application requires a special phone that digitizes voice and sends it over the Internet to a second IP telephone. Another application, known as the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), is used to download files from an Internet site to a user’s computer. The FTP application is often automatically invoked when a user downloads an updated version of a piece of software. Applications such as FTP have been integrated with the World Wide Web, making them transparent so that they run automatically without requiring users to open them. When a Web browser encounters a URL that begins with ftp:// it automatically uses FTP to access the item.

History of the Internet

At the beginning of the 1960s, an American researcher

had already developed the theoretical

basis for networking computers. Some years

later, the Advanced Research Projects Agency,

ARPA, a research institute of the American military,

developed such a computer network. In

October 1969, two computers in two scientific

institutes in the U.S. were connected with one

another.

After a few months, two more computers were

connected to this network, which was called the

ARPANet. In 1972 – when the network included

23 computers – electronic mail, or e-mail, was

developed. At the end of the 1970s, the discussion

groups called newsgroups came into existence.

Between the 1970s and 1983, the ARPANet was

connected to further networks. The large new

network that resulted from these connections was

called the Internet since it connected several

networks with one another. Also in this year, an

address system was established that allowed

computers on the Internet to have names rather

than the numbers by which they had previously

been identified.

Gradually, more and more countries connected to

the Internet, and by 1988, more than 50,000

computers were connected to this network. Until

this point, the Internet was used primarily by the

academic world. In 1989, an Englishman invented

web pages, that is, pages on the World

Wide Web. In 1993, a graphical web browser

was invented that allowed users to navigate easily

from one place to another on the Internet.

Thanks to this invention, more and more people

outside of the academic world began to use the

Internet – such as entrepreneurs the world over,

who set up web sites and used electronic mail.

At the beginning of the year 2000, there are more

than 200 million Internet users, and on the web

it’s possible to find information of every kind,

shopping opportunities, online games, old and

new friends – or you can take advantage of investment

and banking capabilities, hear music

and radio programs, see TV programs and films,

and much, much more.

BROADBAND

Computers store all information as binary numbers. The binary number system uses two binary digits, 0 and 1, which are called bits. The amount of data that a computer network can transfer in a certain amount of time is called the bandwidth of the network and is measured in kilobits per second (kbps) or megabits per second (mbps). A kilobit is 1 thousand bits; a megabit is 1 million bits. A dial-up telephone modem can transfer data at rates up to 56 kbps; DSL and cable modem connections are much faster and can transfer at several mbps. The Internet connections used by businesses often operate at 155 mbps, and connections between routers in the heart of the Internet may operate at rates from 2,488 to 9,953 mbps (9.953 gigabits per second) The terms wideband or broadband are used to characterize networks with high capacity and to distinguish them from narrowband networks, which have low capacity.

Higher-speed Internet transmission facilities, known as broadband, are also helping improve response times. Broadband technologies include Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), which works over telephone wiring, and cable modems, which work over cable TV wiring. Each technology allows data to flow from an Internet service provider to a user's computer hundreds of times faster than traditional dialup modems.