Internet Infrastructure - Evolution Of The Internet Infrastructure

EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE

Simply defined, the Internet is a very large network of many other computer networks. The United States Government played an important role in creating what eventually became the Internet during the 1960s. The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded early research into packet switching technology, which computer systems use to communicate. This approach differed from the way telephone systems transmitted data. Packet switching technology led to the development of ARPANET, the Internet's predecessor.

DARPA, the Defense Communications Agency, and Stanford University supported the development of important communication protocols—called Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)—that define the way information is transmitted on the Internet. TCP/IP became the standard communication protocol used on ARPANET in January of 1983. Generally speaking, communication protocols like TCP/IP are the means by which devices understand and agree upon how and when they will share information with one another.

In 1990, ARPANET was succeeded by NSFNET, which the National Science Foundation created in 1987 to link university computer science departments across the United States. The NSF established regional networks that aggregated traffic from the universities and accordingly fed it into the "back-bone" of NSFNET. The universities that connected to the NFSNET backbone further connected other networks of colleges and individuals.

In 1995, the NSF did away with its backbone and turned what had been NSFNET over to the commercial sector. It created network access points (NAPs) that made it possible for telecommunication companies like MCI and Sprint to establish Internet backbones of their own, to which national or regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) could connect. Organizations or individuals seeking Internet access then had to obtain it directly from a NAP, or subscribe to ISPs like America Online (AOL) with NAP access.