Where do internet providers get the internet they’re providing?
In: Technology
So a net, or network, is two or more computers talking to each other. And there are many networks. Let’s go over them by size category:
You are in your office at work and you decide to move some photos from your phone to your desktop. To do this you connect the two via a USB cable. You just created a ‘personal area network’ or PAN to allow two computers (your phone and desktop) to communicate.
Im this example you could say you are the provider for this PAN since you control plugging and unplugging this cable.
Next you decide to print these photos. Your printer is connected to your computer via the office router so you can share the data to it. This is using the ‘local area network’ or LAN made by your router that connects your computer in the office to other computers and printers and scanners and such. For this example the provider would be the IT guy in the office as he makes sure everything is working for you.
Now your company has two buildings which are a few dozen miles apart. Since some of your data is very sensitive, rather than risking sending it over the internet, they connected the two buildings with a cable that they installed. Not a lot of companies do this but there are a few. Your company just created a ‘Wide Area Network’ or WAN. The provider would be the IT company your company has a contract with to fix things if anything goes wrong.
Finally you do need to send emails to people in other companies so your company buys access to a large WAN. This one has cables running all over the place and connects many companies together allowing their respective computers to talk to one another. There are many different IT companies who build and maintain the wires to connect all these computers and even build special computers and other technology to help make this happen. Your company signs a contract with one such IT company in your area. You are now connected to the largest WAN in the world, also known as the internet.
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