Q - What is the history behind the Internet ?

The Internet has changed the way that we communicate and work; similar to the way that the telephone and transportation ( cars, boats, trains, planes ) did.

Sending letters and faxes has been overtaken by e-mails. ( Although there seems to be a backlash against e-mail ). Directories like Yellow Pages are being replaced by online versions like yell.com.

Internet communication began in the universities of the U.S.A., it was adopted by the wider public and then businesses began to use it.

Many large companies, particularly those with sensitive data and clients, were reluctant to connect themselves to the Internet.

Q - How is the Internet evolving ?

Internet Service Providers ( ISPs ), broadly divided into Business ISPs and Public ISPs. Free dial-up Internet access ( from eg Freeserve ) drove the growth of public Internet use. Larger business’s installed dedicated leased lines for Internet access. Along with these connections they installed network security devices such as routers and firewalls.

Dial-up ( narrowband ) Internet access for homes and small business’s is rapidly being replaced with adsl ( broadband ) Internet access.

De-regulation and competition amongst telecommunications companies and ISP’s has led to lower prices for higher bandwidth. When the telecoms bubble burst in 2000 considerable network capacity became available at very low cost.

However, this network capacity is being used up rapidly as more and more people connect to the Internet at higher speeds and as users send ever larger files. E-mails sent today typically have text and graphics attachments eg Word documents, spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations.

The Internet is beginning to carry voice traffic – so called voice over Internet protocol ( voip ). Again businesses are wary of this because the quality of voice calls is not guaranteed over the Internet and there may be security issues. Companies that are adopting voip are doing so over private IP networks rather than public ones. The general public may tolerate lower quality and ignore security issues in favour of cheaper voice calls.

Closely following voip growth is video over IP growth. Video conferencing has used dedicated isdn or leased lines previously but will be added to IP networks. Again, best quality will be achieved over private IP networks but the public may tolerate public IP networks.

There is little doubt that we are heading towards an IP world but the issue of using public or private networks will continue.

As businesses and the public become permanently connected to the Internet via broadband and leased line connection security issues become more and more of an issue.

There is a need for comprehensive security to block virus’s, spam and pop-ups but also to monitor where people are going to on the Internet from within the company and what e-mails they are sending. In the U.K. company directors are responsible for the activities of their employees.

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