What is Internet ?

Internet is inter – networking between Wide Area Networks (WAN).  WAN is inter – networking between smaller area networks that we call as Local Area Network (LAN).  LAN is connectivity or networking of computers.

Logically, the Internet is like large wide area network that happens to serve millions of computers. It uses the same communication protocol that is Internet Protocol.

Internet History
The Internet was a small network called ARPANET set up in about 1970s by US Department of Defense. It was used mostly for US military research. So it was limited users could connect to the networks, primarily limited to defence contractors and some key universities.

Then in the mid of 1980s, US National Science Fondation adopted the internet protocol technology to set up a group of backbone sites to facilitate the sharing of super computers among researchers. Lately some governmental agencies, research groups, and comercial providers have added their own backbones..

In the 1990s, US Congress passed a bill called the High Performance Computing Act which provide for improvements to the Internet over a five-year period. One goal of the act is to bring adminitration of vaiours government-sponsored networks together into National Research and Education Network (NREN). And lately, the Clinton Adminitration has proposed an accelerated plan for development of the Internet known as National Information Infrastructure.