eli5: Who Provides the Internet

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My Question is how do ISPs provide Internet and that too with different bandwidths. And like is there a central system controlling the whole ‘Internet’?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

“Think of ISPs as railroad companies. Your data is a train, but it has nowhere to go unless it can get onto the railroad track. You pay the ISP a small fee to use their “tracks,” which in turn link to a massive interconnected series of tracks, allowing your train to travel back and forth, wherever you want it to go.”

Source: [www.centurylink.com/home/help/internet/internet-service-providers.html](http://www.centurylink.com/home/help/internet/internet-service-providers.html)

Couldn’t put my words down out of head, but that excerpt explains it nicely. So, taking that into account – Who controls the net? Many different people and organizations such as:

– ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. These guys manage the internet’s domain name system, or DNS; making sure each [www.website.com](http://www.website.com) is linked to an IP address (think of this as the websites mailing address).

– IETF, (my favorite) The Internet Engineering Task Force. This international organization is responsible for maintaining certain components and capabilities of the net, such as security and stability.

– IAB, The Internet Architecture Board. This board of awesome individuals oversee the design and implementation of the internet’s protocols, as well as architectural standards. As an example, most people most likely used port 443, or 80, when loading this post.

Keep in mind that these groups are primarily overseers, and not “governing bodies”. Also, with that said, no one group or Government controls the net.

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