How the Internet & Web Mechanism Works ?

Physically, the Internet uses a portion of the total resources of the currently existing public telecommunication networks. Technically, what distinguishes the Internet is its use of a set of protocols called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Two recent adaptations of Internet technology, the Intranet and the extranet, also make use of the TCP/IP protocol.

The Internet can be seen as having two major components: network protocols and hardware. The protocols, such as the TCP/IP suite, present sets of rules that devices must follow in order to complete tasks. Without this common collection of rules, machines would not be able to communicate.

The protocols are also responsible for translating the alphabetic text of a message into electronic signals that can be transmitted over the Internet, and then back again into legible, alphabetic text.

Hardware, the second major component of the Internet, includes everything from the computer or smartphone that is used to access the Internet to the cables that carry information from one device to another. Additional types of hardware include satellites, radios, cell phone towers, routers and servers.

These various types of hardware are the connections within the network. Devices such as computers, smartphones and laptops are end points, or clients, while the machines that store the information are the servers. The transmission lines that exchange the data can either be wireless signals from satellites or 4G and cell phone towers, or physical lines, such as cables and fiber optics.

The process of transferring information from one device to another relies on packet switching. Each computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique IP address that allows the device to be recognized. When one device attempts to send a message to another device, the data is sent over the Internet in the form of manageable packets. Each packet is assigned a port number that will connect it to its endpoint.