The internet is a network of computers. The first network had only three computers. The complex history of the evolution of the internet involves many aspects such as technological, organizational, social, and political.
The inception of the internet was a result of military research done in the US during the Cold War era. In the 1960s, two antagonistic blocs (the United States and the Soviet Union) wielded enormous control and influence in the world. Hence, any mechanism, innovation, or new tool could help in countering the dispute between the Soviet Union and the United States (Krogfoss, Weldon, and Sofman 172).
The two superpowers also understood the effectiveness of the media.
Since the US government feared a Russian attack on its military bases, it designed a data exchange model that would allow decentralization of crucial information. Thus, if the Pentagon was hit, the information stored there would not be lost. It was, therefore, necessary to create a network linking different stations or bases. This network was referred as the ARPANET. It was developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency.
In 1962, JCR Licklider of MIT was already talking about the creation of an Intergalactic Network Computers (INC). ARPANET was the first stage in the rapid development of the internet. It came in 1969. It was a project of the Department of Defense (DoD) in the US. It was aimed at networking computers used in research centers for military purposes. After its introduction in 1972 and the establishment of the first international call a year later, the ARPANET network grew slowly in the 70s, but for security reasons, remained strictly controlled by the military network and inaccessible to large sectors of the international community and the US academic class (Haigh, Russell, and Dutton 148).
Computer Science Network came into existence in 1983, with the adoption of the protocols TCP / IP on the ARPANET which separated the component strictly from military use and formed MILNET. The creation of CSNET (Computer Science Network) and its connection to the ARPANET led to the full development of the true Internet (Shakkottai, Marina, Koga, Krioukov, and Claffy 274).
Over the years, the rate of growth of the internet has been speeding up. It has facilitated swift coordination and cooperation of structures between the increasing number of networks and the integrated operators. As early as 1983, the internet Activities Board was created. It later came to be known as the Internet Architecture Board. In 1989, the Internet Engineering Task Force was established alongside the Internet Research Task Force (Duguid 357). The agencies were at the forefront of speedy development of the internet and its usage. The creation of EUnet (European UNIX Network) took place in 1982 while in 1983; the European Academic and Research Network came into existence. An American academic network responsible for expanding ties of universities to the internet was ushered in 1986.
In 1984, another institution related to public administration in the US known as the National Science Foundation began the NSFNET network linking five supercomputers within five research centers and making the information available to any school that needed it. Supercomputers have a size similar to a mainframe computer although they have much higher processing speeds (King 57).
The NSFNET has become very popular. Instead of increasing the number of computers connected to the network supercomputers, other networks have been created and connected together (Almeida 67). All the interconnected networks are known as INTER-NET-WORK or simply the internet.
In 1991, the first commercial internet service was created after a lot of pressure from the academic and corporate world. This led to the appearance of PSI NET. In 1993, the World Wide Web (WWW) protocol was adopted. The protocol has increased the number of subscribers to the network.
Works Cited
Almeida, Virgilio. “The Evolution of Internet Governance: Lessons Learned from Netmundial.” IEEE Internet Computing 18.5 (2014): 65-69. Print.
Duguid, Paul. “Open Standards and the Internet Age: History, Ideology, and Networks.” Business History Review 2 (2015): 357. Print.
Haigh, Thomas, Andrew Russell, and William Dutton. “Histories of the Internet: Introducing a Special Issue of Information & Culture.” Information & Culture 50.2 (2015): 143-159. Print.
King, Alistair. “A Coordinated View of the Temporal Evolution of Large-Scale Internet Events.” Computing 96.1 (2014): 53-65. Print.
Krogfoss, Bill, Marcus Weldon, and Lev Sofman. “Internet Architecture Evolution and The Complex Economies of Content Peering.” Bell Labs Technical Journal 17.1 (2012): 163-184. Print.
Shakkottai, Srinivas, Marina Fomenkov, Ryan Koga, Dmitri Krioukov, and Kc Claffy. “Evolution of The Internet AS-Level Ecosystem.” European Physical Journal B — Condensed Matter 74.2 (2010): 271-278. Print.