What Is the Internet and Who Controls It?
Why should I have to understand how the Internet works? You probably don’t. Like your car or any technology, using the technology does not require an understanding of how the technology works. You may want to learn a little more because you are curious. The changes in this category of technology have come so rapidly that we all have experienced the transitions in an area that has important implications for how humans function. We would also suggest that some of our expectations of the Internet may be limited by commercial and political interests and what any one of us might imagine as possible depends on practical matters such as rates and access opportunities as determined by the combination of regulatory bodies and commercial entities. What is it we are all paying for and what is fair?
Think of the Internet as a meta-network—that is, a network of networks. There are huge networks providing a high-speed regional backbone, and there are small networks within individual office buildings. One of these networks might be located at your university or local school district. By running the right software on one of the computers on any one of the networks, you become an active part of the entire system.
Members of the Internet community have made a commitment to share resources and to transfer information over the network in an agreed-on manner. This method of transferring information from computer to computer is called transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP). Rules associated with TCP establish how small amounts of digital information called packets are sent from place to place and how the system should respond when an expected packet does not arrive. The system works the same if the information is part of an e-mail message, a webpage, or streaming video. The IP rules establish a system for addressing and forwarding the packets. Each computer on the Internet has a unique identity or address called an IP number. Typically the same computer also has a domain name. This identity may be static or assigned dynamically each time the computer is connected. While the computer is connected the address must remain stable so that the system knows where request information is to go.
The difference between the IP number and the domain name is that the IP number is expressed as a series of numbers and the domain name as an easier-to-remember series of abbreviated words. For example, the IP number for one the servers we use to conduct our research, 134.129.172.86, gets translated as http://ndwild.psych.und.nodak.edu/. Try either and you should find a web page. A special computer, a domain name server (DNS), keeps track of the domain names corresponding to the various IP numbers. The unique designation for each computer is important, ensuring that data sent over the Internet get to the right place. You don’t have to understand how TCP/IP functions to appreciate what it allows users of the network to accomplish. Files can be quickly sent and received by different kinds of computers over great distances with great accuracy. Messages and files end up where they are supposed to, at a specific computer with a specific IP number.
Making the Connection
To understand how a computer on your desk or the smartphone in your hand connects with the Internet and with resources on thousands of other computers throughout the world, it helps to think of the system as involving two components: a hierarchy of networks representing the Internet and a method for connecting to this network.
An Internet service provider (ISP) is a company or organization that connects multiple users to the Internet backbone. Some of the largest ISPs are companies that provide the nationwide backbone and some of the smaller are local companies that connect to this backbone.
To get from your school or home to the ISP, digital information must travel over some kind of transfer line. This link may still be a regular copper phone line—a setup often referred to as a dial-up connection or dial-on-demand connection. But it is now far more likely that the connection is provided by an integrated services digital network (ISDN) or digital subscriber line (DSL), or cable connection which provide a much faster connection. If you use a cell phone or a device that receives a signal from a cell tower (perhaps a 3G iPad or a 3G version of the Amazon Kindle), your device communicates wirelessly with a cell tower before the digital data are fed through a cable of some type. There are some other options, such as satellite and WiMax (a wireless format with the potential to service a larger area such as part of a city), that are not widely used, but may become more important in the future.
Leased fiber optic lines, sometimes called dedicated connections, come in different bandwidths. The bandwidth indicates the amount of information that can be moved in a fixed amount of time and more bandwidth costs more. In many communities, an individual might be able to pay for a higher bandwidth connection, but this is usually an issue a school administrator with technology responsibilities would deal with.
The wireless (or wifi) connectivity you may connect to in your home, coffee shop, or campus building functions in a somewhat similar way but uses a different part of the “spectrum” and is useful over far shorter distances. Somewhere in the building is a wireless access point. You may have seen this access point called a “wifi hot spot” on a sign you might view as you enter a business. The access point, a radio frequency (RF) hardware device operating on what is referred to as the 802.11 standard, is connected to the LAN (local area network) which connects to the hierarchy of networks we call the Internet. Computers can move around within a range of approximately 150 to 250 feet and still maintain an Internet connection so a campus or school building would need several access points.
Connectivity costs. As an individual you might pay a cable or phone company to physically connect your home to the Internet. You might add a wifi access point at the end of this connection so you can use wifi. You also pay a provider for cell access beyond basic phone and SMS services (some devices such as the Kindle roll this cost into the cost of the device or assume the company can cover this cost based on the content you purchase to read on the Kindle). This second charge is likely called a data plan. Of course, a school also pays for connectivity, but our interest here is in recognizing that parents or care givers must cover these costs outside of school and connectivity cannot be assumed.
We risk venturing into the realm of politics here, but we will note that some communities have decided to offer connectivity as a community service. Strangely, we think, legislation exists in some locations to bar or restrict communities from providing such services (American Public Power Association ). Even the issue of whether you, as an individual, can make a personal decision to leave your wifi unprotected is contested (Cory Doctorow). We mention this ignoring what are argued to be security concerns to your own technology, but to encourage your thinking about the political and business concerns that control Internet access. At least one major provider has decided to address the needs of lower income families by creating a special pricing structure based on income. Comcast has a program for families with children who qualify at school for free or reduced cost lunch (schools provide this break to families based on income and Comcast uses this designation to identify needy families). Hopefully, other ISPs will follow this lead. Information on the Comcast program can be found at http://www.internetessentials.com/terms/ .