Roadmap of the Internet

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Roadmap of the Internet

Series: Common Sense Computing
From: Jeanna Matthews
Length: 00:02:06

Short common sense explanation of what an Internet road map might look like Read the full description.

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Computers and computing touch the daily lives of most public radio listeners. However, the world of computing can be frustratingly complicated and arcane. Common sense computing is a series of short (2-3 minute) entertaining segments dedicated to making computing more interesting and relevant to individuals through straight-forward analogies to the physical world. I am producing a small number of these in the summer of 2004 to gauge interest and to request feedback. I plan to begin producing one each week beginning in the fall of 2004.

Transcript

You’ve probably heard the Internet called the “Information Superhighway”, but have you ever wondered what a roadmap of the Internet would look like? Hi I’m Jeanna Matthews and this is Common Sense Computing.

The “roads” in the Internet are data connections between computers. These connections can take the form of dial-up access, wireless links, Ethernet and many other networking technologies.

According to the Internet Systems Consortium, there are over 250 million computers on the Internet so a single map showing all the “roads” on the Internet would be a bit overwhelming. However in the Internet there are the equivalent of cities or groupings of computers called Autonomous Systems.

Interestingly, the roads within these Internet cities are often larger than between cities. For example, if you use a local Ethernet network at home or at work, the “bandwidth” or number of lanes on...
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