InterNet: What does it mean?
Contents:
What is a Network?
History
Components of a Network
Benefits of a Network
Types of Network
Transmission medium (Wired and Wireless)
Networking Devices
Some Networking Terminologies
Differences between network and internet
- Protocols
Network
A network is a group of two or more computers with other peripheral devices connected or linked with each other for the purpose of sharing data and hardware resources. It is the interconnection of two or more devices.
History
It was the dream of many scientists like Nikola Tesla to make communication wirelessly. For the first time, Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of technology made communication between two computers possible. The technology used in this networking broke down a message into individual packages which were then reassembled at the receiving computer. This led to the creation of ARPANet (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) - the first communication system developed by the US military. On October 29, 1969 ARPAnet delivered its first message from one computer ( in a research lab at UCLA) to another which was at Stanford and each one was the size of a small house. The message was “LOGIN”, very short and simple, but the receiving computer only received the note’s first two letters. The network started growing as technology developed. By the end of 1970, with the inventions of TCP/IP and other protocols, networking became more convenient.
In 1989, Tim Berners Lee founded WWW(World Wide Web) and also he developed the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) in 1993. The WWW was then released for the public and then it began to spread.
Components of a Network:
A network mainly comprises a sender, a receiver and a transmission medium.
A sender is an electronic device or a computer which sends or transmits data to other devices in the network to which the sender is connected.
A receiver is an electronic device or a computer which receives data or information sent by another device connected in the network
A transmission medium is a medium through which data in the form of signal is transmitted. Data can be transmitted either through wired medium or wirelessly.
A message is the data shared by sender and received by receiver.
Benefits of Networking:
Efficienct use of Storage: It is more economical to have a application software on a network drive instead of storing the copies of that application on all user's storage device. It is better to have a big hard-disk on the server computer instead of many small disks in each computer in the network.
Preserving Information : It is difficult to maintain regular backups on multiple stand-alone computers . Keeping backups on a single point will be easier to preserve information.
Efficiency: Networking allows deletion, modification and upgradation of software or data to be done at a single point, making it more efficient.
Reduction in hardware costs: In a network, hardware devices like modem, printers, scanners, etc. can be shared with other connected devices. For example, if there is a single printer attached to the server computer in a network, then all other connected devices in that network can use the printer.
Reduces the burden of hard copies: It is easiereasy to share soft copies to a large number of individuals than hard copies. In a network, the connected computers can easily share documents (soft copies) to each other.
Efficient use of Storage: It is more economical to have an application software on a network drive instead of storing the copies of that application on all user's storage devices. It is better to have a big hard-disk on the server computer instead of many small disks in each computer in the network.
Types of Networks:
There are 5 types of Networks.
PAN: It stands for Personal Area Network. It is generally established in small areas like room, cabin for personal use and its range is about 10m. Examples of this type of network are:
playing bluetooth devices
Connecting phone and PC for data sharing
Remote control devices, etc.
LAN: It stands for Local Area Network. It is greater than PAN and used in a small area like a building. It can work with both wired or wireless mediums. It may have a maximum range of 50 Km. This type of network is generally established in buildings of a school, hospital, bank,etc. to connect multiple computers and peripheral devices to the server computer.
CAN: It is also known as Cluster Area Network or Campus Area Network. It is bigger than MAN. It is used to connect multiple buildings in a campus. Examples of CAN are network between buildings of a society, connection between the networks of two or more buildings of a school, hospital, industry, etc.
MAN: It is called Metropolitan Area Network. It is bigger than the above discussed networks. It has a large range and can work across a city. MAN is used for connecting the network of a school , bank , etc. with its branches located in other cities.
WAN: Wide Area Network is the full form of WAN. It is the biggest of all networks and can be used even globally. The Internet is the most popular and common Wide Area Network spread across the world. In which about 97% of transmission of data packets is done through Optical Fibre Cables . They are linked by communication facilities like telecommunication or satellite signals and used to connect crores of computers across the world and are a great source of information. And also help in instant communication between computers.
Transmission Medium:
In a network, the physical path through which data in the form of signals travel from sender to receiver is known as transmission medium. They can be both wired or wireless.
Wired Networking Technologies:
Ethernet Cables: They are the most popular form of network cables used in wired medium. An Ethernet Cable resembles the shape of a phone cable , but it is larger than a phone cable and has 8 coloured wires. They are used to connect various devices like PCs, routers, switches for establishing a Local Area Network. There are two types of Ethernet Cables:
Straight-through cables: They are used to connect two computers without a hub or router.
Crossover cables: They are used to connect a computer to a switch or a hub or a router.
Coaxial Cables: They are used in the transmission of videos,communication signals and audios. They are mostly used by the cable television industries to connect TVs with cables for providing entertainment services to the public.
There are two types of coaxial cables:
Baseband cables: They allow quick transmission of a single signal at a time.
Broadband cables: They are used for long-line transmissions of signals and can transmit multiple signals at a time.
Optical Fibre Cables: They have the highest capacity to transfer data packets with very high speed They consist of a central glass core consisting of a bundle of glass threads surrounded by several layers of protective materials. Data packets travel through these glass threads in the form of light signals with extremely high speed. They are very expensive, that's why they are not used in small area networks and are mostly used in WANs.
Wireless Networking Technologies:
Bluetooth: It uses low power radio waves to connect devices like computers, phones, bluetooth headphones, bluetooth speakers , etc. Its range can vary from 10m to 240m and is generally used in PANs . Its signals can penetrate walls and work even if there is an obstacle between a sender and a receiver.
Infrared: It uses infrared technology for very short range communication of about 5m, in which infrared signals are emitted by infrared LEDs. It is necessary that the sender and receiver are in a direct line of sight and only one signal can be transmitted at a time. The most common example of infrared is a remote control.
Wi-Fi: It stands for Wireless Fidelity. It uses radio waves to connect devices . It is the most popular wireless networking technology and has many advantages like it has almost replaced the wired medium and can easily be used where wires cannot be installed, it is really inexpensive and it can connect multiple devices at a time . Its disadvantages are- it requires high power consumption and it is slower than the wired medium. It can be used in both PANs and LANs. of a Network:
Networking Devices:
Modem: It enables us to connect our computer with the Internet over the existing telephone lines. It changes analog signals into digital signals and vice-versa, to enable their transmission through phone lines.
There are two types of Modem:
Internal Modem: It is already installed inside a device.
External Modem: It is connected externally to a computer.
Laptops and smartphones have internal modems.
Hub: It is a networking device used to connect multiple devices directly with the network using cables. Each connection is known as port. It distributes the received data to all the connected ports .
Switch: It is similar to Hub , but it is user-friendly and offers great performance. When a network contains devices in large numbers, switches are used instead of hubs to maintain the communication speed. A switch is aware of the address of each connected port, and sends the received data only to that device which is intended by the receiver. That's why it is also called an intelligent device.
Router: It is used to connect two networks. The word router is derived from the word "route", as it defines the best path for the data packets to be transmitted at the receiver's end.
Repeater: It is a networking device which is used to re-establish signals in wires as the signals become weak after a distance. It receives electric signals, cleans them and regenerates them .
Some Networking Terminologies:
Internet: It is a wide global area network which connects devices across the world. It is a very huge source of knowledge and information and also provides communication facilities. Computers communicate with each other due to various communication protocols.
Intranet: It is a computer network within an organization which is used to share files and information securely. And no one outside the network can access this information.
Bandwidth: It is the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. It is generally measured in Kbps or Mbps.
URL: It stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is the particular address of a website and one can reach the website by entering the URL in the address bar of a web browser and then pressing Enter.
Website: It is a collection of numerous electronic pages.
Webpage: Each electronic page in a website is a web page. It is designed with the help of HTML and CSS.
Homepage: It is the first page of a website.
Webportal: It is similar to websites, but the interface of a webportal is different for different users. They generally require a Login ID and Password of the user.
IP Address:
It is a set of four numbers separated by (.) . Each number is from 0 to 255. The total size of a IP Address is 32b.
There are two types of IP Address:
Number IP Address- 192.168.25.4
Character IP Address - blogger.com
Protocols:
A communication protocol is a standard set of rules or instructions followed during communication of devices.
There are different types of protocols like:
TCP/IP
HTTP/HTTPS
SMTP
POP and IMAP
FTP
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