How does the internet work?
Let’s dive a little deeper into ‘the internet’ and understand the basic concepts of it.
After reading this article you will be on the 10% of people who know how the internet works.
01. Concept of an IP address,
Whether it is a computer, mobile phone, or a router, it is identified uniquely by a string of numbers called an IP address. An IP address is similar to a home address, an address that uniquely identifies your home. Everything connected to the internet will have an IP address.
02. What happens when we browse the internet?
When we type “www.google.com” in our browser, it automatically sends a request to our Internet Service Provider. (ISP)
ISP:-
ISP is the company that charges you for using the internet. ‘AT&T’, ‘Verzion’ and ‘Xfinity’ are some popular ISPs that you can find out there. However, ISPs will change from country to country. Every time you browse the internet, automatically you are communicating via your ISP.
Even though we wanted to go to ‘google.com’ our ISP does not communicate via domain names. Same as a postal man does not deliver mails without relevant addresses. So this request is forwarded into a server called Domain Name Server.
Domain Name Server (DNS):-
DNS is similar to a phone book that has Domain Names and relevant ip addresses.
DNS fetches that ip address of the nearest ‘Google Data Center’ and sends it back to our computer. Now the computer passes the request (this time with the address) into ISP. Then the ISP will forward that request into a Google Data Center. This request might have to travel halfway around the world to find the nearest Google Data Center. How data can travel around the world in a matter of milliseconds?
Well, that’s why we have a network of Optical Fiber Cables around the world. These are physical cables that are placed on the bottom of the sea. Through these cables, our request will travel into one of Google Data Servers. These servers understand our request and send the relevant files to load the google.com webpage. Before transmitting, these files will be broken into smaller pieces called data packets.
These data packets will be transmitted into our ISP, which then transmit back into our modem or router. A modem or router can convert and transmit these data packets into our mobile device or computer so that it can be displayed on our browser.
Now the Google.com webpage is finally loaded into our browser.
It’s fascinating how these things work out in milliseconds.
Our postal system has rules for making sure that our mails travel to the exact destination. Similarly, the internet uses somethings called protocols to define communication between devices over a network.
ex:- TCP/IP, HTTPS/HTTP, DHCP
Let’s dive deeper into internet protocols with another medium article.
