The Internet Infrastructure

The Internet works on the same technology and uses the same network protocols as any other network. However, the sheer size and scale of the network, the volumes of data transferred, the distances between networks (spanning the globe), and the need for strong security across networks require significantly more complex design and administration efforts.

Internet Service Providers

At the core of the Internet is what is known as a backbone. A backbone is a part of a computer network that interconnects multiple networks spread across a wide area (WANs). A smaller backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same building, on campus, or across a city. The Internet backbone interconnects networks across countries, covering the entire world.

Entities known as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) manage backbones in a region or a country. The backbones of one region are connected with other backbones of other regions as interconnection points. They have extremely high bandwidth and speeds and are connected across countries and continents, using massive cables laid from country to country overland or under the sea.

Installing and maintaining a backbone is very expensive and generally managed by large organizations. Depending on the size of the country or region, the backbones can break out into smaller service provider networks which will then provide connections to smaller end-user networks for businesses, campuses, or homes.

ISPs provide Internet access via a range of technologies and media. For home users and small businesses, traditional options include copper wires or fiber optic cables connecting to modems and routers at the business or home. These connections are shared connections, and their performance may vary based on the number of users connected. Cellular phone providers now provide cellular data connections, which allow data transfer to the Internet through wireless connections. These enable smartphones to connect to the Internet from anywhere.

ISPs secure the backbone and the parts of the network that they are responsible for. However, local administrators are responsible for managing the security of end-user networks in homes and offices and on campuses.

Governance

The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage. However, there are a few aspects of a global network that need some form of oversight and control. The two most significant areas that need to be managed well are the IP address allocation and the Domain Name System (DNS). This oversight is provided by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are unique numbers assigned to every computing device that wants to join a network. On a network of the scale of the Internet, it is a huge challenge to manage this allocation. The Domain Name System is an extension to the IP address system, where unique user-friendly names are mapped to each unique IP address to help humans when they need to identify a computing device to connect to.

The technical specifications and standardization of the core protocols are the responsibility of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Both of them are non-profit and self-regulating organizations comprising loosely affiliated global participants, and all of them can contribute their expertise.

Data Centers

ISPs maintain large spaces known as Data Centers. Many organizations, especially those that provide services to the public, maintain their servers in data centers where they are professional managed under the right environmental conditions, mainly low temperatures, since servers can get hot if used for huge computations or data transfer.