eli5: What do optical networking engineers do and how do companies like Cisco create these networks for customers? What about submarine networking and cables and wifi? How do they help connect people to the internet?

Question

Where does Routing and Switching come to play here? What about PONs and plugs and such?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Just to correct a small common misconception: the cables don’t help to connect to internet, they _are_ the internet. Or the machines, rather. If you take bunch of machines and connect them together, you have a network of machines. Then you can **inter**connect these **net**works together.

In modern world, many devices are very specialized: a server is just another computer, but specialized servers are huge and meant to be used only remotely. A router is just a computer, but specialized to only route traffic.

So If I want, I can go to all my neighbors and run cables to their homes (if they agree) and they I can be their ISP. They pay me to have internet. Then I just buy internet from a bigger company and pay them.

This is how it basically works. Though huge companies already have huge networks and you generally dont have to rely on your neighbors.