We are in a world, where we can share and access data that are thousands of miles away. Sitting in your bedroom, you can read, watch and interact with data that is shared by some random person across the globe. What makes it possible? The internet makes the impossible possible. Let us learn how the internet works.

The data is usually stored in a data center, in a server under a specific IP address. Generally, an IP address is a string of numbers similar to your residential address, which helps in unique identification. Similar to a server, every device connected to the internet (laptop, desktop or mobile phone) has its own IP address provided by the Internet Service Provider. The provision of unique IP addresses helps in accessing a particular server and transmission to a particular device.

Since these strings of numbers are difficult to remember for every website specifically, domain names are used.

The domain name is entered in your browser and the browser sends a request to the DNS server – a catalog of IP address and respective domain names – to get the respective IP address. After getting the IP address, your browser requests for the access of a particular server in the data center. Once the server receives the request, it starts transmitting the data to your laptop or mobile phone.

How does this data reach your device? One of the easiest ways to transmit data is by using a satellite. The data is sent to a satellite via an antenna from the data center. In turn, the satellite relays it to an antenna near you, which transmits the data to your laptop or phone. Since the satellites are placed tens of thousands of miles above the earth’s surface, it takes a considerable time for the transmission of data via them. This latency in the transmission of data is vividly unacceptable for many internet-based applications. So how is the signal transmitted at such high speeds?

Therefore, the transmission is done with the help of a network of optical fiber cables that connects the data centers and your devices through rough terrains.

Once the server gets access to a particular website, the data flow starts. The data is transmitted in digital format – light pulses – via optical fiber cables. These light pulses are transmitted via a router or cellphone tower to your laptops and mobile phones. To learn more about routers, click on the link à www.modemfriendly.com