Category Archives: How internet works

The Functioning of IP

The main function of IP is to give interconnection of sub-networks to create an internet so it can transmit data. This IP protocol can give four main functions Basic data transfer addressing and routing as well as fragmentation of data-grams. The IP layer provide entry into the delivery system that is for transporting data toward the internet. commonly when we hear the term IP we think of networks that connected with each other through devices usually known as routers, which is used to connect more than sub-networks with each other.  This is true but IP can give more than these tasks. IP can give connectionless data delivery among nodes on an IP network. The main reason for IP is to give a basic algorithm for transferring data to and from a network. It uses two functions in order to obtain these implements which are addressing and fragmentation. also for upper layer protocols IP can provide connectionless delivery. This mean that IP will not set up a session among the transmitting station and the receiving station before submitting the data to the receiving station.  IP will not tell the sender or receiver of the situation of the packet.  It solely tries to transfer the packet and will not make any faults that it is facing in this attempt.

This summary includes only the part about “The Internet Protocol”

This book was written by Naugle, Matthew G.

Link

Transmission Facilities, broadband

This book discuss the two aspects of broadband in a physical way technology and commercial service aspects. The transmission of more than one signal over a transmission medium is called Broadband as Louis, P. J. stated.  he also stated that “Technically a telephone conversation over a T-1 is a broadband transmission.” The term broadband is being used to define the transmission of information at speeds that  from 45 Mbps or higher. Also the broadband services has been used to “define high-resolution video and CD-quality audio commercial services”(Louis, P. J.). The subscriber can interconnect to the network and one network to another using transmission facilities or even switching or concentrating transmission within the network. The transmission facilities come in two different kinds can be metallic or glass and also have two different kinds of information formats which can be analog or digital format. Networks are usually created with duplicated transmission facilities among two points. This shows the diversity routing and is practiced to improve the reliability. Moreover The information that it carry can be transmitted in a variety of signaling formats which is the ‘language’ of the network and the components that it has. The transmission facilities can be splitted as out of band or in band

Out of band information is “a situation in which call-control information is physically  carried over one path while the actual call or content information is sent over another path.”(Louis, P. J.) And in-band information “refers to the situation in which call control and call/content information is physically carried over the same path and in serial fashion.”(Louis, P. J.)These transmission facilities are necessary to connect networks. Transmission media can be splitted to three types metallic, Fiber optics, Microwave. Louis stated that “The ‘wireless’ aspect of the wireless industry is related to local device access to the subscriber and not access between networks or even between its own network elements”  Speed is The most important thing of carriers that relate to transmission media. Moreover the more information speed supported by the facility the more money the can make and save. This book provide a very value information when it comes knowing what is customer needs and expectations so you can set them as well as meeting their needs. Also it give a very important acknowledgment about transmission facilities. And to know more about broadband technologies when it comes to finding the right broadband technology.

The writer of the book is Louis, P. J.

This includes parts about Transmission Facilities and broadband

Book link

How the internet work when its controlled by the government?

This article suggest that governments and corporations have more control on the internet and digital activities want to build a network that can never be blocked.  The article started by mentioning the egyptian government and how the internet in egypt was controlled from up-down, he stated that and included information about the ISP in Egypt, and that five calls blocked the internet in the egypt, these calls was as a well-placed phone calls as Dibbell, Julian stated.

He mentioned what John Gilmore stated that” digital-rights activist John Gilmore once famously said, ‘The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.’“ But here five calls blocked the internet for 80 million egyptian. How can the this issue be fixed? well yes there is some small and dedicated community of digital activists working on this issue.There are routers that are made by nonprofit community network called FunkFeuer. He stated” The signals that the routers beam and pick up link them, directly or indirectly, to some 200 similar nodes on rooftops all over greater Vienna, each one owned and maintained by the user who installed it and each contributing its bandwidth to a communal, high-speed Internet connection shared almost as far and wide as Kaplan, from the top of the smokestack, can see.”

Know as wireless mesh network is Funkfeuer. And there are no fees charged for connecting to it, what you only need is $150 a setup hardware. The equipment that the user install are maintained by the user. This article is important for two reasons first it can give quite important information about how at some points the government can control the internet, second, how is the internet work in a way that some nonprofit communities made a network that only the user can control it not the government. So to know how the internet work, we should also know how it works in the government side in the meaning of “Freedom” and “dictatorship”. Just like what the example says in the article that five calls shutdown the whole internet in Egypt.

The main article has been written by Dibbell, Julian

article link

ISPs and peerings

This paper discuss Internet Service Provider and peering stating that peering is “an interconnection business relationship whereby ISPs provide connectivity to each others’ transit customers.” Internet Service provider look for peering for two main reasons the first is that Peering has less cost and more reliance on the purchased internet transit second is that peering lower inter Autonomous System traffic latency this is done “By avoiding a transit provider hop in between ISPs traffic between peering ISPs has lower latency.”(William B.), ISPs connect end users and businesses to the public internet Those will compete with each other on prices and performance and reliability but you should also know that they must cooperate with each other to supply global connectivity to all other things on the internet. If we look at why specifically peering we can find out that the choices that was made by ISP we find out that those choices “are often dominated by telecommunications cost issues” as William B. Norton stated,  he also mentioned   that  Transit Prices for DS-3 were estimated recently as expensive as as 50,000 a month7, so to reduce those transit costs ISPs look for “peering relationships with other ISPs that provide more direct traffic exchange and reduce the load on these expensive transit services.”(William B.). This paper is important because it gives quit important information about ISPs and  why peering.

The main writing was written by William B. Norton in the link below

Link

The History of Internet protocols

Each host on the internet has a range of IP numbers. The domain name system DNS assign the numbers to names of hosts or websites. When user enter a name of website “the internet knows which number to send the query to by looking up the DNS database.”(Ian Peter)

Ian Peter stated that “The DNS was introduced in 1984.” WHOIS database is linked with the DNS, that store the names and addresses of domain owners. Whois was set up mainly to give the technical managers of hosts the ability to contact their peer. Moreover Ian Peter stated that “there were no privacy issues or privacy laws to think about.” But that has been changed, and some problems linked with the present system including the easiness to get the contact details that could be used for span mailing lists. These things are leading to necessity for changes to WHOIS so that Personal information can be private.

Another issue is that The DNS use a system called American Standard Code for information Interchange. So when it comes to languages other than English or other character sets such as Arabic or Japanese, a lot of problems will come out. This is because ASCII does not support other languages well.  The protocol determine what the internet is, is TCP/OP mainly  work for transporting data across the internet between different systems. Ian Peter stated that it was invented in 1970’s and the first problem faced was that the numbering system was going to run out of numbers in the future. So in 1995 after years of working TCP/IP Vs 6 was  published to solve this problem. SMTP which stands for Simple Message Transfer Protocol, Ian Peter stated that it is “the basic standard for email”, and was released in the 1980s. Another protocol is the file transfer protocol (FTP). And it is a way to “upload or download a file from an Internet computer.” (Ian Peter) Also the very powerful protocol hypertext transfer which is http that allow internet users to click on the name of the site and visit it.

Summary of Ian Peters writing about “History of the Internet protocols”

http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/protocols.html

How ISPs work?

ISP is referred to Internet Service Provider. They are companies who provide access to the Internet, they can be owned by an individual or by group. Internet is a very big network formed by the interconnecting of a lot of small as well as big networks around the world. There are a very big amount of data on the Internet, but it is useless if could not access them.

ISPs are the companies who give you the access to the information. They bring the required technology to give us the ability to access this information and add information and data to it.

There are 5 types of ISPs Dial-up ISP, DSL ISP , Fiber Optic ISP ,Wi-Fi ISP , Satellite ISP.

Things that are related to ISPs are:

Modem

 

To connect to the internet using your computer you have to do so using modem. The modem functions as to modulate the data and change it into digital form before sending on the information to the internet Service Provider. The data that it receives from the ISPs is also in digital signal and so it demodulates the data

IP Address

 

IP means The Internet Protocol. All computers that connect to the Internet is given an Internet Protocol address by the Internet service provider. when we request a website in the web browser we are really typing in the Internet Protocol address of that website.

DHCP

 

DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Control Protocol. Shah Newaz Alam stated that DHCP is “A protocol is nothing but a set of rules that decides the process of doing a work. The dynamic host control protocol is used by the ISP to assign temporary addresses to any of its subscribers who intend to connect to the Internet.” ISP use it to assign temporary addresses to the subscribers who want to connect to the internet.

 

Backbone of ISP

 

ISP buy a length of bandwidth for working of its backbone and based on this bandwidth the information is sent or received

Summary of Shah Newaz Alam post about “How does an ISP Work”

  http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-does-an-isp-work.html

How internet works?

How internet works?

Jeff Tyson mentioned that when you connect your computer to the internet it become a part of a network. In example of this is when we connect a modem and dial a local number to connect to an ISP. An ISP is Internet Service Provider. When at work you might be part of (LAN), But possibly you still could be connected using an ISP that the company your working for has contracted with. When connecting to ISP, you become a part of their network. Jeff Tyson stated that “The ISP may then connect to a larger network and become part of their network. The internet is simply a network of networks.” Almost all large communications companies have their own backbones that connect different regions and in each of these regions the company’s network will have Point Of Presence, which is a place for local users to access the company’s network. Moreover there is no overall controlling network, but there are several high-level networks connecting to each other through network access points. The National Science Foundation  made the first high speed  backbone in 1987 that was called NSFNET, it was T1 line that connected 170 smaller networks together and worked at 1.544Mbps. IBM, MCI Merit worked with NSF to make the backbone and developed a T3 that was 45 Mbps the following year.

Summary of Jeff Tyson’s  post about How Internet Infrastructure Works

Link below

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/internet-infrastructure.htm