The internet comes from somewhere, but where? And why can’t we make our own?
How the Internet Began
The internet is a technology born in part out of a desire for military superiority. Shortly after the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite into space, U.S. President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The year was 1958.
Working with academics and a handful of private companies, ARPA created ARPANET, a network connecting computers in several universities across the country in the 1970s. This Department of Defense project established protocols still in use today that enabled networks to connect all over the globe.
How ISPs Work
The internet today is many times larger than it was back in those days, and college campuses are hardly major factors driving how these things work. Today, schools, businesses, and households all get online using an Internet Service Provider, or ISP.
ISPs build buildings throughout major population centers that house the mechanisms needed to connect local residents to the broader internet. These often windowless buildings are each known as a Point of Presence (POP). Fiber optic lines connect POPs to one another.
In order for the customers on one company’s customers to communicate with another’s, the two must connect their infrastructure to a Network Access Point. All of the large ISPs you know connect to these NAPs in major cities, where unfathomable amounts of bits and bytes zip through cables every second.
We can’t replicate and store all the data stored across the web. When we try to create our own internet, what we’re really after is a means of getting online without the need for an ISP.
Can You Make Your Own Internet?
ISPs don’t own the internet. All of the websites that we’ve come to know and love reside on someone’s data servers. ISPs simply own the infrastructure used to connect us to these servers: coax cables, fiber lines, telephone lines, cell towers… you name it.
Cable vs. Fiber Internet: Which One Is Better?Cable vs. Fiber Internet: Which One Is Better?The two most common forms of broadband internet are cable and fiber. But which one is better for you? If you have the option of both, which one should you go with?We can’t replicate and store all the data stored across the web. When we try to create our own internet, what we’re really after is a means of getting online without the need for an ISP.
Constructing Your Own Internet
A connection between all the devices in your home isn’t hard. That functionality comes built into most modern computers, and it’s called a Local Area Network (LAN). This allows you to send files, exchange communications, and play games with other devices connected to the network.
Setting up a similar network for a larger space is also possible. This is called a Wide Area Network (WAN). Private companies often use combination of LAN& WAN to create the intranet only employees access.
With access to untold riches, you could go about laying down your own fiber cables and start expanding your network out to other buildings and communities. If enough people started doing this and inter-connecting their networks, a new internet would be born. But there are reasons this isn’t happening aside from the astronomical cost.
Legal Roadblocks
We don’t have to invent a new way of accessing the internet. With enough money, we could build an alternative to the corporate-owned one that already exists. A billionaire (or a group of billionaires) could build a legacy by running fiber all through a state and making access available for free. More realistically, communities could decide they need access to fast internet infrastructure and allocate tax dollars toward laying down cable.
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