Updated Aug 2022.
Most people would describe the Internet as something you use to get to websites and they would be correct but the Internet is so much more. The Internet is an awesome feat of engineering and is actually an infrastructure of cables that has its roots in the days of telegraph 1830s / 1840’s. Webpages (accessed via the World Wide Web (WWW)) were not “invented” until about 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee (TBL) and TBL is known as the father of the World Wide Web but the WWW is only one aspect of the “Internet“.
The modern “Internet Infrastructure” is basically a collection of cables that were originally laid by the telegraph companies and this includes “Submarine cables“. Over time more cables were added for / by the telephone companies to enable telephony to become the “de facto” method of communication and ultimately Telegraph / Telegraphy became redundant. It is difficult to pin an exact time to when the term “Internet” was used by “the populace” but Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider is considered to have been a “Pioneer of the Internet“. Generally speaking the word “Internet” basically means “Inter connected networks” and / or “Inter connected computers“. This “concept” (by Licklider) seems to have been in the 1960s, I didn’t start playing with computers until late 1970s and wasn’t aware of the “Internet” and it’s likely that most people that were using the Sinclair ZX80 / 81 were also unaware 🙂 Thinking back, I can remember when I used to use a (dial-up) “modem” to access the “Internet” and this would have been in the early / mid1990’s so somewhere around then the term “Internet” was in common use. I think most people (including me) didn’t really know what the “Internet” was, we just used the modem to dial a number and then we could “do stuff” on the Internet e.g. message boards and view webpages but mostly geeky stuff. My memory is a little hazy but I think my first ventures to the Internet were provided by AOL, using a dial-up connection. From what I remember, it was an awesome experience being able to access information that may have been thousands of miles away. The modem connection speed would have been about 14Kbps and eventually rising to something like 56Kbps. The modem used the standard phone line so you couldn’t make or receive calls while using the modem. Along came Broadband in the late 1990s / early 2000, with connection speeds of a staggering 500Kbps and now 100Mbps and even as much as 500Mbps. The improvement in (theoretical) connection speeds is staggering as is the reliability.
An interesting article on Internet in the UK is a good read for history buffs. A similar article relevant to the USA “A Brief History of the Internet Service Providers” is also a good read.
Also See Internet Origins and Internet explained and Telegraphy for more info.
The “infrastructure” of the telegraph system was mainly adopted by railway companies, which led to the “standardisation of time” and the “Morse code” played a big part in this. The telegraph system relied on “point to point” cables being laid to allow telegraphic communication to be made. Railway companies were able to lay cables alongside the railway tracks to afford the telegraphic communications between towns and stations. See “internet origins“.
The “Infrastructure of the telephone / telephony system” was built on the telegraph system and basically used the same cables but now used “analogue signals” to transmit voice signals instead of “Morse code”. This was a game changer because people were now able to “talk” to other people that might have been miles away. Over time more cables were laid and not just alongside railways, towns and cities were connected to this infrastructure of cables via underground and overhead cables.
We still use this (basic) “infrastructure of cables” in our modern world and the modern “Internet Infrastructure” still uses the “Telephone Infrastructure” but most of the old (copper) cables have been replaced with “optical fibre” cables and mostly use “Digital Signals” instead of “Analogue“. With regard to cables, BT (in the UK) own most of the cables that form the infrastructure and they have replaced the major trunk cables with Optical Fibre cables. Trunk cables are the back bone of the Infrastructure and are the main cables connecting Towns, Cities and Villages. The logistics of this is mind blowing, imagine you want to phone “someone”. You pick up the phone and dial the number and within seconds you are talking to someone that might be a few miles away or several thousand miles away. Your phone has connected you to this other person and has had to use the infrastructure of cables to enable you to talk to someone miles away. It isn’t really magic but it can seem that way. Mobile phones have a similar infrastructure but use radio signals instead of cables.
The modern Internet Infrastructure is awesome and (land line) voice calls now mostly use the “Digital Highway” instead of the standard “phone line”. This was made possible a few years ago by buying an “IP Phone”, which routed calls through the Internet Infrastructure via your “Internet Gateway Router”. This system is mainly referred to as VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) or VOB (Voice Over Broadband). Currently Virgin customers are supplied with a router that has one or two “telephone sockets” and your landline phone is plugged into to one of these sockets. You don’t need to buy a special “IP Phone”, which is awesome. For many years Virgin have routed landline calls through their infrastructure and ultimately through the BT Infrastructure (Internet), they made it appear that Broadband, TV and Phones were all separate “services” and allowed them to charge you for a “Landline”. All the services you get from Virgin use the same cable, Broadband, TV and Phone all use the same cable so it’s good to know that Virgin are now acknowledging this by providing phone sockets on the Router so that it is transparent that phone calls are being routed via Broadband / Internet infrastructure.
It is going to be interesting to see what BT (or their “agents” come up with, with regard to “phones / voice calls”. I wonder if they will now provide a router with built-in phone sockets to make it transparent that voice calls are being routed through the Internet. I think the days of paying for a landline in addition to Broadband are numbered. In the case of using a “BT phone Line”, it is geared up to provide Voice and Broadband but providing TV is currently done using Satellite (Sky)
UPDATE Aug 2022. (Important) I have recently stumbled upon some info that most people will probably not be aware of, with regards to telephone landlines. It seems that “landlines” (in the UK) are to be phased out by 2025, I can’t believe I wasn’t aware 🙁
For people who have an Internet connection, this won’t be a problem – unless you have a (local) power cut. Most ISPs currently provide the Router (Internet Gateway) to access the Internet and new routers will have at least one socket (port) to plug your phone into, in most cases you can still use your current telephone instrument and won’t be aware of any differences.
For people who don’t have an Internet connection (and router), this will be a problem. Hopefully, this will be addressed by the provision of a free router that enables voice calls to made and this will be invisible to customers.
Generally, the change over to VOB (Voice over Broadband) / VOIP (Voice over IP) won’t cause any problems for most people but the main problem will be during a power cut. Currently land lines are “self powered” and are not affected by power cuts. This could be a big problem for many people but if you / they have a mobile phone, it won’t be a problem. Unfortunately, if there is a “district” power cut your nearest mobile mast might also be affected so you will have no Internet, no mobile phone basically a communications black out.
If you know of any vulnerable people that will be affected by these changes, please help them by visiting the Future of Voice site and use the advice given – it is very helpful.
UPDATE September 2022.
My Virgin Contact has ended and I decided to go over to Sky Broadband. The new (BT) Router* has 2 x phone sockets, one for UK and one for non UK. This confirms that voice calls will be routed via the Broadband router (Internet Gateway) and will be the way forward for all voice calls. It remains to be seen what will happen for people who don’t have an Internet connection.
The router is basically a rebadged BT hub 3 but everything about it has SKY. I’ll probably do a review soon 🙂
End of UPDATE.
Free View and FreeSat are geared up to provide TV only so broadband and phones would usually be provided by BT.
The developments in the Infrastructure, coupled with the awesome advancements in computers have made the past 40+ years an awesome time to be alive! There have been many genius “inventions” an a lot that were not!
The modern “Internet Infrastructure” makes use of electronic boxes called routers, which are basically the “controlling aspect” of what we call the Internet. Network Techies refer to the Internet as a WAN (Wide Area Network) and this is similar to a LAN (Local Area Network) but the “Inter” bit basically means “interconnected” , so Internet basically means “inter connected networks”, which could be multiple LANs being “inter” connected. In effect the “Internet” (a WAN) makes it possible for millions of computers to “talk” to each other although this doesn’t happen in practice.
A LAN is where 2 or more computers are connected either by Ethernet cables or WiFi. By its nature a LAN is “Local” and is contained within a building or complex. In a business case, all / most of the computers can share info and “talk” to each other and are often used to access information held on the company file & printer servers, where “common” information is stored. This is similar to home users who have more than one computer but most home users don’t usually have file & print server. They can still share files and printers. So a LAN is “self contained” and has no access to computers outside of the LAN because there is no (electronic) “gateway“.
A WAN (the Internet) is a game changer because this allows the provision of (electronic) “gateways” that allow computers and / or network devices to access computers that are not part of / or are outside of the LAN e,g, in a different Town or Country etc. A WAN is the collection (sum) of computers that have joined the WAN and basically all computers (that have connected to the WAN) have the potential to communicate with each other. So when you join a WAN, you have the potential to connect to Millions of other computers. In reality this is controlled by a few factors such as “Firewalls” and “Proxies” but “in Principle” any computer and / or network device can connect to any other network device globally.
A WAN is not always the Internet but uses the Internet infrastructure to achieve its purpose. e.g. a Company / Business may have several offices in different geographical locations. Before Broadband became main stream, Businesses had to use “Leased (Telephone) Lines” to have a dedicated means of “Inter connected” offices / sites. At some stage “Dark Fibre” was used as the “Leased Line” and this was better than a standard “Leased Line” but was horrendously expensive. It isn’t used much (if at all) these days as “lit fibre” has become the de facto standard.
When BROADBAND came on board (very late 1990s / early 2000), this was a game changer. It allowed Companies to use the Telephone Infrastructure to have “Inter connected” offices / sites without the expense of “leased lines”. Telephone (land) lines needed to be converted to ADSL, which basically allowed “Voice” & “data” to be sent using the same standard copper cables but “voice” & “data” were sent at different frequencies. ADSL ultimately replaced the ISDN system and made “Broadband” affordable to the masses but BT were slow to adopt ADSL and “Cable companies” were installing Optical Fibre cables to almost every street corner in the UK (except rural locations) and new “Cabinets” were now appearing on most streets. The connection between the premises and cabinets was still via copper cables but “Broadband” (to the Internet) was now affordable to the masses. The Cable companies are now owned by Virgin Media but the Virgin infrastructure does have to access the BT infrastructure at some point.
With regards to the INTERNET, it is indeed a WAN (in networking terms) but it is a “Global Internet Infrastructure“. To access it, you need to use an ISP (Internet Service Provider) who will (currently) issue you with a “Router”. The “Router” creates a (electronic) “Gateway” to the “Global Telephone Infrastructure” that we call the Internet. Routers enable communication between different networks and where a “router” is used as an “Internet Gateway“, this will be the “Default Gateway” to access the Internet. The gateway allows you to (initially) access the ISPs infrastructure and in turn the “Global Internet / Telephone Infrastructure”. Without “Routers”, the modern “Internet Infrastructure” would likely not exist.
The modern day Global Internet Infrastructure has its humble beginnings in telegraphy and telephony but now mostly uses fibre optic cables along with WiFi, Satellite and even Microwave to give a robust and reliable infrastructure. Generally speaking, this modern infrastructure is reliant on Routers and optical fibre cables to give us fast and reliable Internet connections.The Infrastructure is constantly evolving and is becoming more robust and reliable, Routers enable “data communications” to find the best “path” through the infrastructure from source to destination. It isn’t yet “self healing” but it is getting there. Routers are now more able to “route” traffic (data) via the “best route” so if there is an outage (damaged cable), the Router amends the “path”. You can think of this as something like “Sat Nav” where it diverts your initial (best path) route to accommodate things like road works and / or traffic jams.
This infrastructure is indeed awesome and each Country / Nation has its own infrastructure. Countries are connected electronically by “submarine cables” laid on the sea beds (and has been since the days of Telegraphy) but we now also use Satellite and Microwave to help maintain a robust and reliable infrastructure.
So when you access the Internet, you are indeed using an awesome Infrastructure of cables and routers that enable “Internet (electronic) Services” such as the WWW, Email, Cloud Storage, etc.
The modern world would be a very different place without the “Global Internet infrastructure”, It never sleeps and it’s available 24 / 7. It is generally very robust and reliable due to the “invisible Army” of network engineers and specialists who maintain the infrastructure with minimum down time. This invisible army of engineers and technical specialists is awesome. However, the “Global Internet Infrastructure” does have a few weak points. Submarine cables are open to damage from say sharks munching on them. Trunk cables can sometimes be damaged by mechanical diggers but these “Weak points” are being addressed by using a “mesh like” infrastructure that allows normal routing of data to be re-routed via a different path. Ultimately the “Global Internet Infrastructure” will become “Self Healing” and it will become “bomb proof” and “Shark Proof”.
Use the Internet infrastructure to :-
- “Surf the Web”,
- Collect your email,
- Send a SMS/ text
- Store your photos
- Make voice calls
Give a nod to the early pioneers of telegraphy and telephony because they were the humble beginnings of our modern Internet Infrastructure and global communications.
Over the past 40+ years, I’ve learned a lot about the “Internet Infrastructure” and how it works but Magic still seems to apply 🙂
I can’t imagine a modern world without the “Global Internet Infrastructure“, our everyday lives use it for communication in one way or another. The modern Internet Infrastructure is basically the backbone of our modern world and without it our lives would be very different. It is likely that our lives without the Internet Infrastructure would be a lot harder / maybe more difficult. Back in the day from a communications view, if you had to send a letter to “Aunt Maud”, you would have to use a pen and paper to write your missive and then use the postal system (snail mail) to get the letter to Aunt Maud; this might take a few days or weeks. In the modern world, the Global Internet infrastructure allows you to pen your letter electronically and send it electronically where it will be delivered in seconds and that is awesome.
Modern day businesses use the “Internet” to order / procure goods. The populace use the “Internet” to buy goods and services. Modern day businesses and the populace use the “Internet” to communicate with each other so without it we would find our lives to be (possibly) harder and being able to communicate with others would be more difficult.
IMO. the pioneers of electronic communications (Telegraphy and Telephony) are heroes. Some would say that “the modern day Global Internet Infrastructure” bears no resemblance to the days of telegraphy” but I say “that is where it has its roots and it has evolved big style”. We still use cables to send “electronic signals” (as did telegraph) but the cable are now mostly Optical Fibre and the “signals” are now Digital instead of Analogue. There is still a lot of copper cables in use, which are basically the same as the original telegraph cables but the “signals” are now mainly Digital. The main difference between telegraphy and telephony is that telegraphy could only use “On / Off” signals. Samuel Morse made this a usable feature. Telephony used Analogue Signals that enabled “Voice” to be transmitted. The modern Telephony infrastructure makes use of Optical Fibre cables and Digital signals. The modern “internet infrastructure”, regardless of the type of cables, is made possible by the use of “Routers”. It could be said that “routers” are the “King Pin” of the modern Internet infrastructure but we also have to include “IP Addressing”, which wasn’t a thing in the days of telegraph or telephony. We also need to throw in the use of DNS, which is mind blowing. The modern “internet infrastructure” has its roots in telegraphy, from a “cable” point of view but Routers, Fibre cables, IP Addressing and DNS are a modern way of using the basic infrastructure of cables.
The Engineers and Technicians that maintain the modern Infrastructure are also heroes, they mostly work as part of an “Invisible Army” who mostly work unsociable hours while most people are sleeping. They have made the early infrastructure evolve into a reliable, robust and mostly secure Infrastructure.
I Doff my Hat to all who are involved in maintaining the modern “Internet Infrastructure”.