What is the Internet?

The Internet is a worldwide network linking various devices, including (computers, mobiles, tablets, and gaming consoles like PS5 and Xbox). Consider it a freeway, where traffic(Data) from one plays to another and vice versa from millions of endpoints. Everything is connected via cables and it’s an extensive network for connecting the entire globe, a large amount of cables are laid under seas and oceans, as shown in the figure below.

Image credits: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Working the Internet.

Now that we have a basic idea of what the Internet is, let us dive deep and understand, how it works.

Physical Medium: A device connects through the medium of Wires.

a Fibre Optic Cables: These are used for long-distance connectivity, which transmits the data as light.

b Ethernet cables: These are used for short-distance connectivity, which also ensures direct connectivity and fast transmission.

Explaining it further

• Physical devices like Computers, Mobile, and Tablets send and receive the data.

• Internet Service Provider(ISP): These service providers play a key role in or you can say it is a medium which helps you connect to the internet.

• Routers: Routers are nothing but a mechanism which guides your signal or information to reach the proper source.

• Servers: Servers serve you the information, like a restaurant person getting your food and serving it. It also holds the information.

The basic flow of how the internet works is shown in the figure above.

Travel journey of the data

Consider an example when you hit www.google.com in your browser what does happen exactly behind the scenes? Let’s dive in.

1 User enters www.google.com in the browser, but the computer doesn’t understand www.google.com, what does the internet do it asks where can I find this www.google.com.

2 (Tada!) Here comes the DNS(Domain name service). This is a digital phonebook or Yellow Pages of the internet. It translates google.com to an address that the internet understands ie 142.250.191.78. so the whole crux is the DNS does is simply translate the google.com to an Internet Protocol address, which is then read correctly by the internet.

3 After the DNS is done locating the address, the web request is made in action.

• Routers: This gives a proper direction to the request.

• ISP(Internet Service Providers): These are the ones issuing connections and initiating the requests through them to the global network.

• Servers: The end destination where the request is fulfilled and the response is sent back to the client's computer.

Request/Response Cycle

The above figure shows the dataflow via the internet to the server and back.

Conclusion

This is an overview of how the internet works.