The Internet is a global network of computers. Every computer that is connected to the Internet is considered a part of that network. This means even your home computer. It's all a matter of degrees, you connect to your ISP's network, then your ISP connects to a larger network and so on.
At the top of the tree is the high-capacity backbones, all of these interconnect at 'Network Access Points' 'NAPs' at important regions around the world. The entire Internet is based on agreements between these backbone providers who set in place all the fibre optics lines and other technical aspects of the Internet.
The Internet has it's origins in the creative work of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government. APRA heavily developed communication systems, and a computer communications network called ARPANet in 1969. The ARPANet connected up academic and government institutions. The network was mainly used for accessing files and to send email.
ARPANet ran on the NCP protocol, developed by Vinton Cerf in the 1970's. He was joined by Robert E. Kahn in 1973, and they set forth to develop a new and improved protocol. They finally developed the TCP/IP protocol suite, a more flexible and powerful protocol that was applied to ARPANet on January 1st, 1983. The Internet still run on the TCP/IP protocol, and it's why January 1st, 1983 is commonly thought of as the day the Internet was born. It's also why Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn are recognised as the fathers of the Internet.
Since 1983 the Internet has accommodated alot of changes. The original Internet backbone, which was ARPANET, was beginning to show it's age and was finally replaced by the NSFNet backbone in 1989. NSFNet was government sponsored and lasted until 1995, when commercial networks developed their own routing architecture, and the Internet was finally decentralised. The heart of the Internet is now controlled by these self designated Tier 1 networks.
The Internet can now be best analysed a range of tiers. At the top is tier one networks which connect to the entirety of the Internet and do not pay for their access. Some of the recognised tier one networks are AT&T, GBLX, L3, NTT, Qwest, Sprint, Tata and Savvis. It would be fair to say that these networks are at the centre of the Internet. Tier two networks have to pay for upstream IP access from their tier one counterparts, some examples of tier two networks are BT, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. As you may have deduced, virtually all tier one networks are based in the US.
That said, the internal makeup of the Internet goes largely unnoticed by the majority of end users. For them, the last two decades has seen the Internet accommodate such things as network LANs and ATM and frame switched services. The Internet continues to evolve, and is becoming available on a wider selection of technologies, such as mobile phones, pagers and possibly on televisions in the future.
The actual term "Internet" was finally defined in 1995 by FNC (The Federal Networking Council). The resolution created by the The Federal Networking Council (FNC) agrees that the following language reflects our definition of the term "Internet". "Internet" refers to the global information system that,
- Is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons.
- Is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols.
- Provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.
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