Internet access

The Internet developed from the ARPANET, which was funded by the US government to support projects within the government and at universities and research laboratories in the US – but grew over time to include most of the world's large universities and the research arms of many technology companies.^[5][6][7] Use by a wider audience only came in 1995 when restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic were lifted.^[8]


In the early to mid-1980s, most Internet access was from personal computers and workstations directly connected to local area networks (LANs) or from dial-up connections using modems and analog telephone lines. LANs typically operated at 10 Mbit/s, while modem data-rates grew from 1200 bit/s in the early 1980s, to 56 kbit/s by the late 1990s. Initially, dial-up connections were made from terminals or computers running terminal emulation software to terminal servers on LANs. These dial-up connections did not support end-to-end use of the Internet protocols and only provided terminal to host connections. The introduction of network access servers supporting the Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) and later the point-to-point protocol (PPP) extended the Internet protocols and made the full range of Internet services available to dial-up users; although slower, due to the lower data rates available using dial-up.


An important factor in the rapid rise of Internet access speed has been advances in MOSFET (MOS transistor) technology.^[9] The MOSFET, originally invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng in 1959,^[10][11][12] is the building block of the Internet telecommunications networks.^[13][14] The laser, originally demonstrated by Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow in 1960, was adopted for MOS light wave systems around 1980, which led to exponential growth of Internet bandwidth. Continuous MOSFET scaling has since led to online bandwidth doubling every 18 months (Edholm's law, which is related to Moore's law), with the bandwidths of telecommunications networks rising from bits per second to terabits per second.^[9]


Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just broadband, is simply defined as "Internet access that is always on, and faster than the traditional dial-up access"^[15][16] and so covers a wide range of technologies. The core of these broadband Internet technologies are complementary MOS (CMOS) digital circuits,^[17][18] the speed capabilities of which were extended with innovative design techniques.^[18] Broadband connections are typically made using a computer's built in Ethernet networking capabilities, or by using a NIC expansion card.


Most broadband services provide a continuous "always on" connection; there is no dial-in process required, and it does not interfere with voice use of phone lines.^[19] Broadband provides improved access to Internet services such as:


In the 1990s, the National Information Infrastructure initiative in the U.S. made broadband Internet access a public policy issue.^[20] In 2000, most Internet access to homes was provided using dial-up, while many businesses and schools were using broadband connections. In 2000 there were just under 150 million dial-up subscriptions in the 34 OECD countries^[21] and fewer than 20 million broadband subscriptions. By 2004, broadband had grown and dial-up had declined so that the number of subscriptions were roughly equal at 130 million each. In 2010, in the OECD countries, over 90% of the Internet access subscriptions used broadband, broadband had grown to more than 300 million subscriptions, and dial-up subscriptions had declined to fewer than 30 million.^[22]


The broadband technologies in widest use are of digital subscriber line (DSL), ADSL, and cable Internet access. Newer technologies include VDSL and optical fiber extended closer to the subscriber in both telephone and cable plants. Fiber-optic communication, while only recently being used in premises and to the curb schemes, has played a crucial role in enabling broadband Internet access by making transmission of information at very high data rates over longer distances much more cost-effective than copper wire technology.


In areas not served by ADSL or cable, some community organizations and local governments are installing Wi-Fi networks. Wireless, satellite, and microwave Internet are often used in rural, undeveloped, or other hard to serve areas where wired Internet is not readily available.


Newer technologies being deployed for fixed (stationary) and mobile broadband access include WiMAX, LTE, and fixed wireless.


Starting in roughly 2006, mobile broadband access is increasingly available at the consumer level using "3G" and "4G" technologies such as HSPA, EV-DO, HSPA+, and LTE.

Natural disasters and access[edit]

Natural disasters disrupt internet access in profound ways. This is important—not only for telecommunication companies who own the networks and the businesses who use them, but for emergency crew and displaced citizens as well. The situation is worsened when hospitals or other buildings necessary for disaster response lose their connection. Knowledge gained from studying past internet disruptions by natural disasters could be put to use in planning or recovery. Additionally, because of both natural and man-made disasters, studies in network resiliency are now being conducted to prevent large-scale outages.^[169]


One way natural disasters impact internet connection is by damaging end sub-networks (subnets), making them unreachable. A study on local networks after Hurricane Katrina found that 26% of subnets within the storm coverage were unreachable.^[170] At Hurricane Katrina's peak intensity, almost 35% of networks in Mississippi were without power, while around 14% of Louisiana's networks were disrupted.^[171] Of those unreachable subnets, 73% were disrupted for four weeks or longer and 57% were at "network edges were important emergency organizations such as hospitals and government agencies are mostly located".^[170] Extensive infrastructure damage and inaccessible areas were two explanations for the long delay in returning service.^[170] The company Cisco has revealed a Network Emergency Response Vehicle (NERV), a truck that makes portable communications possible for emergency responders despite traditional networks being disrupted.^[172]


A second way natural disasters destroy internet connectivity is by severing submarine cables—fiber-optic cables placed on the ocean floor that provide international internet connection. A sequence of undersea earthquakes cut six out of seven international cables connected to Taiwan and caused a tsunami that wiped out one of its cable and landing stations.^[173][174] The impact slowed or disabled internet connection for five days within the Asia-Pacific region as well as between the region and the United States and Europe.^[175]


With the rise in popularity of cloud computing, concern has grown over access to cloud-hosted data in the event of a natural disaster. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been in the news for major network outages in April 2011 and June 2012.^[176][177] AWS, like other major cloud hosting companies, prepares for typical outages and large-scale natural disasters with backup power as well as backup data centers in other locations. AWS divides the globe into five regions and then splits each region into availability zones. A data center in one availability zone should be backed up by a data center in a different availability zone. Theoretically, a natural disaster would not affect more than one availability zone.^[178] This theory plays out as long as human error is not added to the mix. The June 2012 major storm only disabled the primary data center, but human error disabled the secondary and tertiary backups, affecting companies such as Netflix, Pinterest, Reddit, and Instagram.^[179][180]