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 1. Internet Providers
 2. Blog
 3. Who Invented the Internet - A Full History


WHO INVENTED THE INTERNET - A FULL HISTORY

Posted under: Blog, History and Internet


WHO INVENTED THE INTERNET - A FULL HISTORY: NAVIGATION

 * Timeline of the Internet
 * Part 1: The Early Years of the Internet
 * Part 2: The Internet Goes Mainstream
 * Part 3: The Internet Takes Over
 * Part 4: The Future of the Internet
 * Conclusion

The internet has become a staple of modern life. We use it to shop for what we
need and want, talk to friends and family, run businesses, meet new people,
watch movies and TV, and pretty much everything else you can think of. In short,
it has given birth to a new age in human history.

The last example of this type of widespread change was the industrial
revolution. But unlike the digital revolution, which took place over less than
half a century, the transition to industrialized societies took hundreds of
years. However, this rapid change is just further proof of how much the internet
is reshaping the way we live.

The internet started in the 1950s as a small, government-funded project. But
have you ever wondered how these humble beginnings led to worldwide
connectivity?

If you have, read on for a detailed summary of the history of the internet.


TIMELINE OF THE INTERNET

The invention of the internet took nearly 50 years and the hard work of
countless individuals. Here's a snapshot of how we got to where we are today:




PART 1: THE EARLY YEARS OF THE INTERNET

When most of us think of the early years of the internet, we tend to think of
the 1990s. But this period was when the internet went mainstream, not when it
was invented. In reality, the internet had been developing since the 1950s,
although its early form was a mere shell of what it would eventually become.


WIDE AREA NETWORKING AND ARPA (1950S AND 1960S)

For the internet to become popular, we first needed computers. While the first
computers date back to the 17th and 16th centuries, the first digital,
programmable computers broke onto the scene in the 1940s. Throughout the 1950s,
computer scientists began connecting computers in the same building, giving
birth to Local Area Networks (LANs.) and instilling people with the idea that
would later morph into the internet.

In 1958, the United States Department of Defense Secretary Neil McElroy signed
Department of Defense Directive 5105.15 to create the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA), which, due to the tensions produced during the Cold War, was
tasked with creating a system of long-distance communications that did not rely
on telephone lines and wires, which were susceptible to attack.

However, it wasn't until 1962 that J.C.R. Licklider, an MIT scientist, ARPA
employee, and Welden Clark published their paper "On-line man-computer
communication." This paper, which was a series of memos, introduced the
"Galactic Network" concept, which was the idea that there could be a network of
connected computers that would allow people to access information from anywhere
at any time. Eventually, the idea of a "galactic network" became known as a Wide
Area Network, and the race to create this network became the race to create the
internet.

Because of how closely this idea resembles the internet today, some have named
Licklidler the "father of the internet." However, this network's actual creation
and implementation resulted from the hard work of hundreds if not thousands of
people.


THE FIRST NETWORKS AND PACKET SWITCHING (1960S)

To build the internet, researchers were working on connecting computers and
making them communicate with one another. In 1965, MIT researchers Lawrence
Roberts and Thomas Merrill connected a computer in Massachusetts to one in
California using a low-speed dial-up telephone line. This connection is credited
as being the first-ever Wide Area Network (WAN). However, while the two men were
able to make the computers talk to one another, it was immediately evident that
the telephone system used at the time was not capable of reliably handling
communications between two computers, confirming the need to develop a
technology known as packet switching to facilitate a faster and more reliable
transmission of data.

In 1966, Roberts was hired by Robert Taylor, the new head of ARPA (which had
been renamed DARPA), to realize Licklider's vision of creating a "galactic
network." By 1969, the network's early framework, ARPAnet, had been built, and
researchers could link one computer at Stanford and one at UCLA and communicate
using packet switching, although messaging was primitive. Shortly after that, in
1969, computers at the University of Utah and the University of California,
Santa Barbara, were added to the network. Over time, the ARPAnet would grow,
serving as the foundation for the internet we have today.

However, there were other versions, such as the Merit Network from the
University of Michigan and the Robert CYCLADES network, which was developed in
France. Also, Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of the National Physics
Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom developed a similar network based on
packet switching. There were countless other versions of the internet in
development in various research labs worldwide. In the end, the combined work of
these researchers helped produce the first versions of the internet.


INTERNET PROTOCOL SUITE (1970S)

Throughout the rest of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, different academic
communities and research disciplines, desiring to have better communication
amongst their members, developed their own computer networks. This meant the
internet was not only growing but that there were also countless versions of the
internet that existed independently of one another.

Seeing the potential of having so many different computers connected over one
network, researchers, specifically Robert Kahn from DARPA and Vinton Cerf from
Stanford University, began to look at a way to connect the various networks, and
what they came up with is the Internet Protocol Suite, which is made up of the
Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol, also known as TCP/IP.
The introduction of this concept was the first time the word "internet" was
used. The term "internetworking" was shorthand, which reflects the internet's
initial purpose: to connect multiple computer networks.

The primary function of TCP/IP was to shift the reliability responsibility away
from the network and towards the host by using a common protocol. This means
that any machine could communicate with any other machine regardless of which
network it belonged to. This made it possible for many more machines to connect,
allowing for the growth of networks that closely resemble the internet we have
today. By 1983, TCP/IP became the standard protocol for the ARPAnet, entrenching
this technology into how the internet works. However, the ARPAnet became less
and less significant from that point until it was officially decommissioned in
1990.


PART 2: THE INTERNET GOES MAINSTREAM

By the middle of the 1980s, the growth of the internet combined with the
introduction of TCP/IP meant the technology was on the brink of going
mainstream. However, for this to happen, massive coordination was needed to
ensure the many different parties working to develop the internet were on the
same page and working towards the same goal.

The first step in this process was to turn the responsibility of managing the
development of the internet over to a different government agency. In the U.S.,
NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Energy (DOE)
played essential roles in developing the internet. By 1986, the NSF created
NSFNET, which was the backbone of a TCP/IP-based computer network.

This backbone was designed to connect the various supercomputers across the
United States and to support the internet needs of the higher education
community. Furthermore, the internet spread worldwide, with networks using
TCP/IP across Europe, Australia, and Asia. However, at this point, the internet
was only available to a small community of users, mainly those in the government
and academic research community. But the value of the internet was too great,
and this exclusivity was set to change.


INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS - ISPS (LATE 1980S)

By the late 1980s, several private computer networks had emerged for commercial
purposes that mainly provided electronic mail services, which, at the time, were
the primary appeal of the internet. The first commercial ISP in the United
States was The World, which launched in 1989.

Then, in 1992, U.S. Congress passed expanding access to the NSFNET, making it
significantly easier for commercial networks to connect with those already used
by the government and academic community. This caused the NSFNET to be replaced
as the primary backbone of the internet. Instead, commercial access points and
exchanges became the key components of the now near-global internet
infrastructure.


THE WORLD WIDE WEB AND BROWSERS (LATE 1980S-EARLY 1990S)

The internet took a big step towards mainstream adoption in 1989 when Tim
Berners-Lee from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) invented
the World Wide Web, also known as "www," or "the web." In the World Wide Web,
documents are stored on web servers and identified by URLs connected by
hypertext links and accessed via a web browser. Berners-Lee also invented the
first Web Browser, called WorldWideWeb, and many others emerged shortly after
that, the most famous being Mosaic, which launched in 1993 and later became
Netscape.

The release of the Mosaic browser in 1993 caused a significant spike in the
number of internet users, mainly because it allowed people to access the
internet from their normal home or office computers, which were also becoming
mainstream around this time. In 1994, the founder of Mosaic launched Netscape
Navigator, which, along with Microsoft Internet Explorer, was the first truly
mainstream web browser.

The subsequent Browser Wars, which resulted in the failure of Netscape and the
triumph of Microsoft, made Netscape one of the many early internet players to
rise quickly and fall just as fast. Many use this story to demonstrate the
ruthlessness of Bill Gates' business practices, but no matter what you think of
the guy, this "war" between Netscape and Microsoft helped shape the early days
of the internet.

Apart from making it easier for anyone to access the internet from any machine,
another reason browsers and the World Wide Web were so important to the growth
of the internet was that they allowed for the transfer of text and images. This
increased the appeal of the internet to the average person, leading to its rapid
growth.


PART 3: THE INTERNET TAKES OVER

By the middle of the 1990s, the Internet Age had officially begun, and since
then, the internet has grown in terms of the number of users and how it affects
society. However, the internet as we know it today is still radically different
than the internet that first went mainstream in the years leading up to the turn
of the millennium.


GROWTH OF THE INTERNET AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE



[Our World in Data]

All restrictions on commercial use of the internet were lifted in 1995, leading
to rapid growth in the number of users worldwide. More specifically, in 1995,
some 16 million people connected to the internet. By 2000, there were around 300
million, and by 2005, there were more than a billion. Today, there are some 3.4
billion users across the world.

However, most of this growth has occurred in North America, Europe, and East
Asia. Due to economic and infrastructure challenges, the internet has yet to
reach large portions of Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, North
Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This has left many with the fear that the
internet will exacerbate inequalities worldwide as opportunities provided to
some are denied to others based on access to the web.

But the other side of the coin is that these regions are poised to experience
rapid growth. East Asia had relatively few internet users in 2000. Still, that
region now represents the majority of internet users worldwide. However, much of
this is due to the rapid industrialization of China and the growth of its middle
class.


THE INTERNET SPEED GETS FASTER

In its early years, computers required a connection to a phone line to access
the internet. This connection type was slow, and it also created problems, the
most famous being that it limited the number of people who could access the
internet from a particular connection (Who doesn't remember getting kicked off
the internet when their mom or dad signed on or picked up the phone?)

As a result, shortly after the internet went mainstream, the public began
demanding faster internet connections to transmit more data. The response was
broadband internet, which used cable and Direct Service Line (DSL) connections,
rapidly becoming the norm. By 2004, half the world's internet users had access
to a high-speed connection. Today, most internet users have a broadband internet
connection, although 3 percent of Americans still use a dial-up internet
connection.


WEB 2.0

Another big driver of the growth of the web was the introduction of the concept
known as "Web 2.0." This describes a version of the web in which individuals
play a more active role in the creation and distribution of web content,
something we now refer to as social media.

However, there is some debate as to whether Web 2.0 differs from the original
concept of the web. After all, social media grew up alongside the internet - the
first social media site, Six Degrees, was launched in 1997. But no matter which
side of the debate you fall on, there's no doubt that the rise of social media
sites such as MySpace and Facebook helped turn the internet into the cultural
pillar it has become.


THE MOBILE INTERNET

Perhaps the biggest reason the internet has become what it is today is the
growth of mobile technology. Early cell phones allowed people to access the
internet but were slow and modified. The Apple iPhone, which was released in
2007, gave people the first mobile browsing experience that resembled that which
they got on a computer, and 3G wireless networks were fast enough to allow for
email and web browsing.

Furthermore, wifi technology, which was invented in 1997, steadily improved
throughout the 2000s, making it easier for more and more devices to connect to
the internet without needing to plug in a cable, helping make the internet even
more mainstream.

You can find wifi almost anywhere, and 4G wireless networks connect people to
the mobile internet with speeds that rival those of traditional internet
connections, making it possible for people to access the internet whenever and
wherever they want. Soon, we will be using 5G networks, allowing even faster
speeds and lower latency. But perhaps more importantly, 5G will make it possible
for more devices to connect to the network, meaning more smart devices and a
much broader understanding of the internet.


PART 4: THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

While the concept of the internet dates back to the 1950s, it didn't become
mainstream until the 1990s. But since then, it has become an integral part of
our lives and has rewritten the course of human history. So, after all this
rapid growth, what's next?


CONTINUED GROWTH OF THE INTERNET

For many, the next chapter of the history of the internet will be defined by
global growth. As economies around the world continue to expand, it's expected
that internet use will as well. This should cause the total number of internet
users worldwide to continue to grow, limited only by the development of
infrastructure and government policy.


NET NEUTRALITY

One such government policy that could dramatically impact the role of the
internet in our lives is that of net neutrality. Designed to keep the internet a
fair place where information is freely exchanged, net neutrality prohibits ISPs
from offering preferred access to sites that choose to pay for it. The argument
against net neutrality is that some sites, such as YouTube and Netflix, use
considerably more bandwidth than others, and ISPs believe they should have the
right to charge for this increased use.

However, proponents of net neutrality argue this type of structure would allow
large companies and organizations to pay their way to the top, reducing the
equality of the internet. In the United States, net neutrality was established
by the FCC in 2015 under the Obama administration, but in 2018, this policy was
repealed. At the moment, nothing significant has changed, but only time will
tell how this shift in policy will affect the internet.


INTERNET CENSORSHIP

Another issue that could affect the internet moving forward is the issue of
censorship. Internet users worldwide are often restricted, most famously in
China, to limit the information available to people. These policies have not
been enacted in other parts of the world, specifically in the U.S and Europe.
However, in the era of fake news and social media, some companies, most notably
Facebook, are taking action to slightly limit what people can say on the
internet. In general, this is an attempt to limit the spread of hate speech and
other harmful communications, but this is a gray area that has defined free
speech debates for most of history and will continue to be at the center of
discussions about the internet for years to come.


CONCLUSION

The internet has helped usher in a new age in human history, and we are just now
beginning to understand how it will impact how we live our lives. The fact that
this tremendous cultural revolution has occurred in less than half a century
speaks to the rapid nature of change in our modern world. It serves as a
reminder that change will continue to accelerate as we move into the future.

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