TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

Isn’t it interesting how we always seem to take for granted some of the most significant technological breakthroughs that have helped propel our society into the 21st century? Internet access is one such technology that has changed the way we work, live, and play. The Internet has become such a necessity in most of our daily lives that we hardly even give its significance a second thought. We use the Internet for personal communication, our finances, entertainment, dating, news, research, and much more. However, it’s amazing when asked, “Who created the Internet?” the usual answer is a simple “I don’t know”. The creation of the Internet was a pretty large technical undertaking that took many years to perfect and would require a great deal of your time if explained in complete detail. However, this editorial cuts to the chase and explains its development in a clear, concise, non-technical manner.

In the late 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) developed by ARPA of the U.S. Department of Defense created a network of computers that were all linked together. This network was referred to as ARPANET and was specifically designed to be redundant. The reason for the network redundancy ensured that if any one section of the network became damaged in a large scale military conflict, the remaining computers on the network would still be able to communicate with one another. Back then, the military understood the potential of computer networks and they also understood that in any military conflict reliable battlefield communication is paramount to a successful outcome. This is what led the military to research a way to reliably network computers for such a scenario.

By the mid 1980s, the National Science Foundation created NSFNET. This used the ARPANET technology that was originally developed for military application to allow universities and researchers to connect to each other. By 1987, NSFNET was no longer capable of handling the amount of information that was being transferred, so the National Science Foundation made improvements to the network in order to increase information transfer speeds. This high speed network technology was the key advancement that made the future of Internet access practical. As a result, this improved high-speed network laid the groundwork for the application of commercial Internet access.

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