Internet infrastructure

1. Warming up:

What comes to your mind when you see or hear the word “Internet”?

2. Look through the text and give Russian equivalents to the underlined words, word combinations and terms.

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it. It is a global collection of networks. These networks connect together in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as the Internet. In fact, the very name comes from this idea of interconnected networks.

Since its beginning in 1969, the Internet has grown from four host computer systems to tens of millions. However, just because nobody owns the Internet, it doesn't mean it is not monitored and maintained in different ways. The Internet Society, a non-profit group established in 1992, oversees the formation of the policies and protocols that define how we use and interact with the Internet.

E very computer that is connected to the Internet is a part of a network, even the one in your home. For example, you may use a modem and dial a local number to connect to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). At work, you may be part of a local area network (LAN), but you most likely still connect to the Internet using an ISP that your company has contracted with. When you connect to your ISP, you become part of their network. The ISP may then connect to a larger network and become part of their network. The Internet is simply a network of networks.

Internet servers make the Internet possible. All of the machines on the Internet are either servers or clients. The machines that provide services to other machines are servers. And the machines that are used to connect to those services are clients. There are Web servers, e-mail servers, FTP servers and so on serving the needs of Internet users all over the world.

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a part of the Internet. It is information that is connected or linked together like a web. You access this information through one interface or tool called a Web browser. Each browser provides a graphical interface. You move from place to place, from site to site on the Web by using a mouse to click on a portion of text, icon or region of a map. Each link represents a document, an image, a video clip or an audio file somewhere on the Internet.

3. Read the text attentively and answer the following questions:

1. What is Internet?

2. What is World Wide Web?

4. Which of the listed below statements are true/false? Specify your answer.

   1. Internet is a global collection of networks.

   2. People can communicate through e-mail and chat programs only.

3. Internet is tens of thousands of networks which exchange the information in the same basic way.

   4. You can access information available on the World Wide Web through the Web browser you move from site to site by clicking on a portion of text only.

   5. Films and pictures are not available on the Internet.

5. Write out key words and the sentences expressing the main idea of each paragraph.

6. Retell the text briefly in your own words making use of the key words and the sentences you have written out.