Internet

Article By:

Venkatesh, Alladi Graduate School of Management, University of California, Irvine, California.

Last reviewed:April 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.757467

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• Internet, published June 2014:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

Worldwide system of interconnected computer networks. The origins of the Internet can be traced to the creation of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) as a network of computers under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Defense in 1969. ARPANET originally used 50 kilobits-per-second (kbps) public switched telephone network for communications before progressing to high-speed wired and optical communications. Today, the Internet connects computers and handheld electronic devices through high-speed wired and wireless networks around the world in a nonhierarchical manner unprecedented in the history of communications (Fig. 1). The Internet is a product of the convergence of media, computers, and telecommunications. It is not merely a technological development but the product of social, commercial, and political processes as well. From its origins in a nonindustrial, noncorporate environment and in a purely scientific culture, it quickly diffused into the world of commerce. While the Internet had a dramatic impact on the global economic and social order, it took almost 30 years to emerge as a major technological force.

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