From Grueling Dial-Up to FIOS Heaven- Internet History

Posted by admin (06/03/2011 @ 8:37 am)

Internet.

With a spare fifteen minutes and a few simple clicks of a mouse, the average Internet user can order dinner and have it delivered to his door, download the latest episode of American Idol, make his monthly mortgage payment, and take care of the weekly conversation with his in-laws. All of this done quickly and easily using www.wirelessinternet.net Internet services.

By comparison, it wasn’t until 1470, fifteen years after Johannes Gutenberg’s invented the revolutionary printing press in Mainz, Germany, that the city of Paris, France produced its first written work.

Even at its slowest speed, surfing the Web likely never took quite as long as fifteen years. However, it was only several decades ago that the seemingly instantaneous Internet of modern times was reduced to a sluggish search engine that could make sending an email an all-day affair.

The Seed that Sprouted into the Internet

Before there was “Tweeting,” “Facebooking,” and “Googling,” the Internet began with an idea.
In the early 1960’s various individuals, namely J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, Leonard Kleinrock of MIT and soon thereafter, UCLA, and Lawrence Roberts of MIT, performed the initial thinking and experimentation that would ultimately give birth to the Internet.

The Idea: To develop a reliable technology that would allow people – particularly scientists and military personnel – to exchange information, experiments, and advances with other members of their fields who were located across wide geographical boundaries.  

However, it would be almost thirty more years until the cumulative efforts of scientists, engineers, electricians and countless other professionals resulted in a communications system that somewhat resembled the network used today.

The First of Many Firsts: ARPAnet

 It was in 1969 when the Internet, which at that time was known as ARPAnet, took its first steps. Computers at four prominent institutions – UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah – were linked together and formed the first real network sustained by a technology known as packet-switching.
–ARPAnet = Advanced Research Projects Agency Network

Other Notable Firsts

-1971: Electronic Mail (Email) was Invented
-1974: In a December proposal for a transmission control program, the term “Internet” was first used, thus beginning the transformation away from the artist formerly known as ARPAnet.
-1984-1989: The amount of hosts on the Internet increases by 100x, growing from around 1,000 to more than 100,000.
-1990: The call is answered for Internet dial-up when “The World” (http://www.theworld.com/) becomes the first commercial dial-up Internet supplier.
-1991: The first of what would ultimately amass to more than ten billion webpages by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century was generated.

Connectivity: Dial-Up Systems

“The World” was the Lewis and Clark of dial-up Internet systems. However, just as Lewis and Clark’s expedition was soon followed by the idea of Manifest Destiny and the hope of capitalizing on the California Gold Rush, “The World” was followed by a horde of additional dial-up providers, the most notable being America Online, which started its services in 1995.

How Dial-Up Works: Dial-up providers rely on a special type of server to support Internet connections for a plethora of customers who are all looking to surf the Web at the same time. 

The Bridge to Your Personal Computer: Once a server is properly configured, it is primed to take in incoming dial-up connections.  Dial-up providers established Internet connection for users by using a modem – which was first invented for computer purposes in 1977 – to act as the middle man between a network and an individual computer.

The Sounds of Dial-Up: For those of us who utilized dial-up, recall the irritating, yet somewhat melodious, noise that was a required prelude to checking your email or enjoying any of the other countless benefits of the Internet (if you need refreshing check out this sample).

During the seconds or minutes between the start and end of this noise, all of the various components – the dial-up provider, the server, a local telephone company, the modem, and your personal computer – are acting in unison to provide you with the ultimate reward: connectivity!

The Next Level of Connectivity: Wireless

For many people wireless Internet connection is like magic. But how does wireless really work?

The (basic) Physics of Wireless: Just as the mighty and powerful Wizard of Oz wasn’t as mighty or powerful when Toto discovered the man behind the curtain, the same can be said for wireless Internet. In this case, the man behind the curtain is what’s known as radio waves.
Similar to tv’s, cell phones, and AM and FM radios, wireless Internet uses radio waves to carry an encoded signal to a certain location, known as a router, where that signal is decoded and ultimately turns into the desired webpage.

Think of radio waves as a running back in football whose job is to carry the football (signal) across a certain distance, usually to a first-down marker or the end zone (router), where the team obtains a new set of downs or a touchdown (webpage).

Dial-Up vs. Wireless

While both dial-up and wireless give a user Internet connection, there are several key differences between the two.

1. Convenience: Dial-up requires users to rely on various different groups for their Internet service, whereas wireless connection allows users to have their own personal connection.

2. Speed: Dial-up involves large numbers people using the same server at the same time and thus it can take several minutes and tries to get connected. On the other hand, wireless allows you to connect to the Internet quickly and avoid much of the stress that dial-up users experience.

3. Scope of Access: Dial-up limits users to Internet access in their homes, while wireless provides connectivity in countless other places like airports, universities and parks.

CONCLUSION

Since the Nixon administration, the Internet evolved from a slow, meandering technology that was limited to scientists, educators, and government officials, to a technology that united people in the four corners of the globe. Just imagine where the Internet will take us in the next decade!

  

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