How the internet works
Source: Picture taken by
Spiff
The internet is a network of millions of computers and other devices from around the world, communicating using a common language, Internet Protocol (IP). Each computer has an IP address, which uniquely identifies it on the network. These addresses are numbers in the format xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, with each set being between zero and 255, such as 200.5.37.111
When you connect to the internet, your computer becomes part of this network and is able to send and receive messages to other computers and devices that are also connected.
Computers that are permanently connected to the internet, to store websites and applications, are called servers.
When you type a web address or click on a link, a message requesting the page is sent to the computer server containing that website.
The message is broken down by your computer into small parts called ‘packets’. Each packet is individually wrapped in address information about the destination server and about your computer, to prevent them from getting lost.
The packets are sent from your computer to your ISP’s servers, which check the destination address and forward the packets onwards. Packets may make a number of ‘hops’ between computers before reaching their destination. Each packet may also be sent via different routes across the internet, directed by special computers known as routers based on the amount of traffic between different computers at any point in time.
Once the packets arrive at the destination, they are reassembled into the message. The destination computer processes the request and then replies with a message containing the information you requested, again breaking it into small packets and sending it back to your computer.
This process of breaking messages down into packets, addressing the packets and then sending them from computer to computer is used for all information sent across the internet, whether emails, webpages, movies or voice.
So at any time on the internet, billions of packets are whizzing from computer to computer at extremely high speeds, similar to the traffic on the roads of a major city.