Can we create a connection to the internet ourselves without having to use a cellular 3g/4g subscription / wifi subscription?
In: Technology
The short answer is no, you can interconnect any number of computers together you own and control, that would be called an ‘intranet’. You could connect to your friend’s network and then that would be more *like* an internet.
When we talk about ‘the internet’, we are talking about the mixture of agreed upon protocols (BGP, DNS) which all people agree to use fairly and a physical connection to other networks under the same agreement which is controlled by a number of international NGOs.
For example, you could wire a parallel ‘internet’, set up a root DNS system, and set up your own BGP AS numbers. Hell, we do it in labs all the time, it isn’t that hard. But, the minute you wanted to connect to the wider internet, you come under the control of the before mentioned NGOs. When you do want to connect to the wider internet, almost all of the time you will connect through a tier(whatever) provider, so an ATT, Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast, in the USA. In Germany it would be Deutsche Telekom or someone.
There’s already millions of computers connected to the internet without using 3g/4g cellular, or wifi. You can simply pull a network cable from your router to a PC, and you’ve got access.
Now that that’s out of the way, yes, you can connect to the internet without paying a subscription plan by founding your own “Internet Service Provider”, just like the many existing ISPs across the world. This is usually way more expensive just in material costs than to pay a regular ISP for access, and then you also have to perform all the maintenance your network infrastructure requires.
If you’re asking if you can create your own internet completely independent of the rest of the internet, the answer for this is also yes. You can conceivably design a network consisting of thousands of computers, including both servers and clients, and have them function in the same way as the internet. This is largely how corporate intranets work. Tons of “web” sites that are only accessible by computers within the corporation, not by users of the general internet.
However, there’s little reason to do this for an individual other than as a training exercise. What makes the internet actually interesting to use is the network effect it causes. You want to use the Internet because everyone else also uses the Internet. Almost no one would use the Goodlifesgoodnet because almost no one elses uses it.
Depends on your definition.
The internet is a huge network that mainly connects other, smaller networks.
By itself the internet doesn’t have any kind of service, it’s the end users (yes, companies are also end users) that share resources on it either paid or free of charge.
You could, theoretically, create another huge network that connects other networks and keep it separate from the internet but you would still need people or companies to create content for it, or it would just be an empty network, full of potential but without actual use.
ISPs don’t make the internet they connect you to it.
If you want to have access to the internet you have to connect to it somehow.
The easiest way is through a provider, because that is what they do, but you can connect to any computer connected to the internet and get your access to it routed through that computer.
The ISP themselves connect to each other through a process called peering and they will do the same for you if you have enough computers that connect through you to the rest of the world.
You can also use the protocols that the Internet works on and build your won separate network.
Any two computer connected to each other via the Internet Protocol (IP) are in theory *an* internet, not just the Internet that everyone else uses.
If you are asking about having a connection to the internet that does not require some sort of service that is already in place, then no, all connections to the internet that exists have to be done through some sort of existing connection. This connection allows access to the network of computers that the internet exists on. You do not necessarily need a “subscription” as there have been ways to “hijack” an existing connection, but again this is using an already in place connection.
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The Internet is not a single thing. It is just a bunch of networks of different Internet Service Providers that happens to be connected together allowing data packets to move between them. It is very similar to a road network, postal network or telephone network. So in order to be connected to the same network you need some sort of subscription to a connection or another form of agreement to exchange Internet traffic with some of the other networks. The subscriptions you normally see is intended for private individuals and have a service that is very good for this purpuse. However there are similar subscriptions for businesses and other Internet service providers which have a few different terms. And companies like AT&T, Sprint, etc. have to buy these subscriptions from each other to allow their customers to access all the other networks on the Internet.
And technically you can buy one of these subscriptions but it might not be for you. Firstly it is unlikely that anyone deliver to your home. They expect you to hook up to them at some sort of colocation facility intended for this purpuse. The easiest way to do this is to rent a dedicated line from your phone or fiber company. And they might not have the equipment needed for this at your local phone central as this is usually things they only expect in business parks and such. So you might have to pay them to upgrade your local neighborhood equipment. And then when you get a line from your home to the colocation facility and connected to the other network provider they do not give you any sort of router or other equipment. You have to buy this yourself. And they do not set it up for you but you. This is not as easy as setting up a normal home router though as this is intended for professional networks and uses entirely different technologies. Even if you manage to teach yourself how this all works and how to set it up they still expect you to bring your own IP address allocation which you have to apply for elsewhere. And we are all out of IPv4 addresses so if you want those you have to convince others to give their up. So at the end of the day it have costed you minimum tens of thousands of dollars and a lot of time and you still have to rely on the same companies to provide you Internet access as before.
The Internet is largely built on trust. No one really likes to admit it, but its true. Trust that no-one will fuck things up. And that makes people twitchy.
Do the people you want to connect to trust that you are who you say you are? If so, in theory it boils down to a wire connected to a comms cabinet, connected to an exchange, connected to a data centre connected to everywhere else in the world.
HOWEVER in the real world, almost everything is hosted by a depressingly small number of organisations. AWS hosts nearly half the WWW. Google took over Usenet many years ago. If you can’t get to them, you can’t do jack. And if they say “no” you’re fucked.
Setting up your own connection is possible, but unbelievably expensive, will require massive negotiations with major corporations and frankly really not worth it.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s maybe. Not now.
https://hyperboria.net/
/r/darknetplan
Folks have been working on a separate network for a while. What it really needs is users and content.
Yes.
You can pay for a link, through the phone company, of install your own dark fibre, paying the city and utility costs, connecting your house to the nearest peering point. Then you can buy a cvrrier class router ($150K) to install at the peering point. You may need to pay peers for traffic, unless you connect a sizeable number of users.
This is what ISPs and community broadband companies do.
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