How does the internet work?

Some call the internet "a network of networks". By this, they are referring to how the internet connects one person's or one community's network of devices and data to anyone else's network and data on the internet.

There is a narrative and a system of illegibility around technology. Symbols of clouds take away from the physicality of the internet and make its workings obscure. This makes the system difficuly to permeate, and makes it harder for everyone to change the system.

The internet may not be tangible, but every part of it is supported by tangible physical infrastructure. What if this infrastructure was designed from the beginning with sustainability as a priority?

← this is a router, it is connected to the wall and to the desktop computer with an "ethernet cable". it also needs to be plugged in to a source of electricity

← this computer does not need wifi as it is directly connected to the internet

↑ this phone uses wifi to connect to the internet. the router below provides the wifi

↑ the router is connected to the internet cables in a building which are connected to the network cables on the street ↓

← the internet is connected, physically, with network cables, to other parts of the world

because so much of the internet infrastructure is owned by businesses known as internet service providers (ISPs), not everyone will have equal access. often, if you've got the cash, you've got the service

from slower or no upgrades in infrastructure in certain areas of a city, to refusing to provide service completely, ISPs have the power to connect and disconnect people →


the infrastructure on land is complimented by vast internet cables lining the ocean floors ↓

data is sent from your phone in Toronto, through the router, through your walls, through the street, under water, through a street in London, through the wall of my house, through my router and to my phone

each device that you have has a unique IP (Internet Protocol) address to communitcate with other devices and networks

it is important to learn about IP addresses as they contain geolocation data

to send information over the internet, data (such as text, images, videos, and more) is converted to binary.

binary, here, refers to a a string of 1s and 0s →



the binary code is then sent as a signal of different voltages or as light (in fibre optic cables) through the cable and then converted back into the data

some cables are quicker and have less errors when sending data than others. this, again, depends on the infrastructure supporting your internet.

↑ wi-fi uses radio waves to send data to your device

each wave is created (encoded) with a different amplitude or frequency to represent the data. waves gets sent to your devices antenna and then decoded by your device to recieve the data
↓

We need to know about the systems that exist around us to be able to change them. What if the internet was designed with more transparency about the each file transfer, the infrastructure used, and the location of the devices? Would a more transparent internet be more a more accessible internet?

← devices can also connect to the internet with other wireless antenna and wave technologies (5G, LTE, etc.)

Elon Musk’s starlink satellite system might change this diagram a bit

if you’re in a rural place you might be able buy a 2-way satellite receiver now and connect to the internet via satellite...