HISTORY OF INTERNET

Do you know which organisation is responsible for the emergence of Internet? As we know that using internet we can  review newspaper, magazines, books, listen to music, watch movies, play games, keep ourself updated with current events, go for online shopping, know about recipes, check airline schedules and railway reservations, send e-mail, and much must. Do you ever thought how this can be possible. How this can be originated? Using Internet, we can share data and information across globe instantly. So let us have a comprehensive overview of the history of Internet

The Internet originated with the development of computer during the period from 1950s to 1960s.

In 1957, the USSR (Union of Socialist Republic) launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. In response to this technology achievement, the US department of defence established Advance Research project Agency (ARPA). This agency facilitates the technical research.

In 1969, the Advanced Research project Agency (ARPA) designed a network of four computers to exchange and share their data. The first official network nodes were UCLA (University of California, Los Angelws); SRI (Standard Research Institute), UCSB (University of California, Santa Barbara), and the University of Utah. The first node to node message was sent from UCLA to SRI. This network is called ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network). The purpose was to distribute information between geographically dispersed computers. Later on US department of Defence allowed the Universities to join this network for sharing hardware and software resources. The internet grew in leaps and bounds during the 1970s.

In 1971, more nodes joined the network. These new nodes includes Harvard and NASA.

In 1974, data was transmitted more efficiently with the development of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) then later on IP (Internet Protocol) technology was developed.

In 1982, Internet technology protocols were used, commonly known as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol). This led to one of the first definition of ‘Internet’ i.e. being a connected set of networks.

Tim Berners-Lee developed the WWW (World Wide Web) in 1991. The www (World Wide Web) or simple web is a way of accessing information over the internet. It contains millions of Documents or ‘bunch of pages’ called web pages. Each page contains text, graphics, video, audio, and link to other web pages via hyperlink. The web uses the HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer protocol) for the transfer of these documents over the Internet. Sir Tim Berners Lee, along with Robert Cailliau, invented the World Wide Web while working at CERN (European Council For Nuclear Research) in 1991. Today the World wide web is the greatest database of Human Knowledge.

Earlier, Internet was used by Engineers, scientist, and computer experts for research purpose. Gradually, the network was made accessible to private agencies and general public. People started using it for sending messages and files between the computers.

The organizational structure of Internet has steadily evolved after four decades of internet activity. Thus, making it a modern age marvel. As of 2011, there are approximately 65 million internet users in India alone and 1.3 billion users around the world.


In India, internet services started on 15th August 1995 through a government owned company VSNL (Videsh sanchar Nigam  Limited). In November, 1998, the government opened up the sector for providing Internet Services by private Sector. Private Internet Services providers, like Airtel, Reliance, Tata, Sify, etc. have also been allowed to provide internet services.