An overview of the Internet
What is the Internet? This seemingly easy question might receive different answers depending on each of our backgrounds. The Internet means different things to different people; the young, the old, students, teachers, business people, and poets could all give different answers to the same question.
To a network engineer, the Internet is a global computer network consisting of a web of inter-networks connecting large and small networks together. In other words, it is a network of networks without a centralized owner. Take your home network as an example. It might consist of a device that integrates the functions of routing, Ethernet switching, and wireless access points connecting your smartphones, tablets, computers, and internet-enabled TVs together for the devices to communicate with each other. This is your Local Area Network (LAN).
When your home network needs to communicate with the outside world, it passes information from your LAN to a larger...
