Internet

A worldwide network of networks that all use the TCP/IP communications protocol and share a common address space. It supports services such as email, the World Wide Web, file transfer, and Internet Relay Chat. Also known as the net, the information superhighway, and cyberspace.

The interconnecting global public network made by connecting smaller shared public networks. The most well-known Internet is the Internet, the worldwide network of networks which use the TCP/IP protocol to facilitate information exchange.

A worldwide network of computers. If you have access to the Internet, you can retrieve information from millions of sources, including schools, governments, businesses, and individuals.

The collection of networks and gateways that use Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) to handle data transfer and message conversion from the sending network to the receiving network. [Exchange 5.5]

An international consortium of wide area networks that operate using a standard set of addresses allowing machine-to-machine connectivity on a global scale. The Internet is an outgrowth of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) research project in the early 1970s to provide connectivity between scientists running computer simulations in different locations. Additional regional, private, and public networks have joined the Internet over time. At this point there are over two million computers that now have direct access to the resources on the Internet. ESRI operates a discussion group on the Internet called ESRI-L. ESRI-L is open to the general public and is available to any Internet subscriber. It was established to give ARC/INFO users a way to exchange technical questions and information.

A global network of many interconnected networks.

An enormous network consisting of literally millions of hosts from many organizations and countries around the world. It is physically put together from many smaller networks and data travels by a common set of protocols.

Vast worldwide network of computers connected via TCP/IP.

Sometimes called "The Net", the Internet is a publicly accessible worldwide system of computer networks that enable people to send and receive information from other computers. The Internet uses the TCP/IP network protocols to facilitate data transmission. There are three levels of hierarchy including backbone networks, mid-level networks and stub networks. These include commercial (.com or .co), university (.ac or .edu) and other research networks (.org, .net). The origins of the Internet began in 1962 where a government agency called RAND was commissioned by the US Air Force to develop a military research network that could survive a nuclear attack. Packet Switching was invented as a way of sending data. The first email program was created in 1972. The TCP/IP Protocol was developed in 1973 and by 1983 it became the core Internet protocol. The same year of 1983 saw the development of the Domain Name System (DNS) by the University of Wisconsin. The domain name system made it easier for people to access other servers rather than having to remember the corresponding long IP numbers. In 1992 the World Wide Web was released by CERN and the Internet Society was chartered who controls the Internet. The first graphical user interface to the WWW called "Mosaic for X" was released. By 1996, most Internet traffic was carried by independent ISPs. The Internet Society is building a new TCP/IP that will allow billions of addresses rather than the limited supply that we have today.

Any interconnection among or between private, industrial or governmental computer (digital communication) networks. Note: The term internet (spelled with a lower case "i") is distinguished from the Internet (spelled with the "I" capitalized). "The Internet" refers to a specific, historic, ubiquitous worldwide digital communications network. See Internet [the].