What is the Internet?

There are many different definitions of the Internet and many people often confuse the Internet with some of the applications, which run on it, such as E-Mail, World Wide Web and File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

So what is the Internet? In general terms, the Internet is a system of computer networks, a network or networks that allow users of the Internet to exchange information, files or even talk directly to users of other computers around the world, through the use of set protocols.

To give you an indication of the size of the Internet, the following map shows the number of hosts on the Internet throughout the world as at July 1999.

Copyright © 1999 MIDAS

(http://www.mids.org/mmq/603/big/intrworld.html)

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Is there a father of the Internet? - Resources
Definitions

Copyright © James Higginson 2000