Home Structure of the internet

Structure of the internet

The internet is a global network of interconnencted networks that communicate using a common
set of standards and protocols. These networks are owned and managed by a wide range of
organisations, such as national governments, private companies, and academic institutions.

It is estimated that there are over 4.5 billion internet users (June 2019). The devices they use
are connected (either wirelessly or by cable) to high speed telecommunication networks that
span the globe. At the heart of these networks is the internet backbone: a mesh of super fast
fibre-optic cables and industrial routers that move data at an eye-watering speed. Most of the
backbone is provided by giant telecommunication companies; these companies do not charge
each other for their services, and are not responsible for the availability or reliability of their
services.

The internet — a global network

A Level Connecting to the internet

Individuals and organisations connect to the internet through an internet service provider
(ISP). Depending on your ISP, this connection may be an ADSL connection — which
comes in via the telephone line — or it may be a dedicated fibre-optic cable. If there is no
physical cabling to your home, then your external connection may be via 3G or 4G
technology, or even via satellite.

In the home, your ISP supplies a device (e.g. a home hub) that provides an outgoing
connection from your home network to that of the service provider. This combined device
offers a wide range of network features. It usually has an Ethernet switch, with a few ports
for wired devices, and a wireless access point for wireless connections. A router manages
the outgoing connection and a modem (sometimes provided as a separate box) converts
the signal to a suitable type for the outgoing media.
 LAN connection to ISP

Your mobile phone moves more or less seamlessly from network to network. At home, you
may connect to your home network via its wireless access point. At school or college, you
may connect to their LAN. Out on the street, it is possible to the internet through a mobile
phone mast.

The link from your home router to the internet is itself part of a larger network belonging to
the ISP. It may cover a small geographic area, such as a town, but could extend many
tens of miles to rural outposts. It may support a few hundred or several thousand users.

In general, if routers are used to connect local area networks (LAN) together, a wide area
network (WAN) is created. If a company has a network connecting users across several
offices in separate buildings across a city, this would also be classified as a WAN.
Traditionally, interconnections between company sites in the UK were provided by BT.
These were called 'leased lines' because you were leasing the connection from the
provider. The service offered a dedicated line with guaranteed bandwidth and low latency.

With the growth of the internet and its high speed communication links, many companies
now connect to each of their offices over the internet using a virtual private network (VPN),
to provide a secure connection between sites. A VPN allows users to send and receive
data across public telecommunication networks as if their devices were directly connected
to the private network, which drastically reduces the cost.
 A small corporate WAN

If WANs are connected together, an increasingly complex topology of interconnected

networks can be built. Routers play a crucial role in developing interconnected networks,
as they are needed to join the networks together. These connections are a collection of
Ethernet, ADSL, coaxial, fibre, 3G/4G, wireless, satellite, undersea cable, powerline
transmission, and many other technologies.

The connection of all of these networks across the entire globe is known as the internet.

A Level Internet routers

A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks.
However, not all routers are the same.

Edge routers link one network to another.

Subscriber routers is the term given to routers provided to homes and small
businesses. These routers are small scale, low-cost devices with two interfaces (one
for each network). Simple, low-cost routers can also be used on internal networks to
link network segments (where the network has been subdivided into segments for
security or performance reasons).

Enterprise routers connect large businesses and ISP networks to the internet.
These routers are far more powerful (and expensive) and are capable of handling
very high volumes of data.

Core routers are the routers that are part of the internet backbone. These routers have
multiple interfaces, all of which can work at the highest speed simulatenously.

ERherwork
Business ISP
networkER network

ER

CR CR
Internet
backbone
CR

CR
CR

ER
ISP
network
SymbolMeaning

CR Corerouter

ER Edgerouter
Core routers and edge routers

A Level Packet switching

Traffic on the internet is transported as packets. An internet packet is made up of the data
that is being transported, which is called the payload, and a header.

32bits

Version IHL TypeofService Totallength

Identification Flags Fragmentationoffset

Timetolive Protocol Headerchecksum

Sourceaddress

Destinationaddress

Options(+padding)

Datavariable

Internet packet

Internet packets carry all sorts of payloads. For example, the data might be part of a web
page, or an email, or a streamed audio track. The type of data is identified by the protocol
field within the header. Internet packets have a maximum size to prevent anything
'hogging' the bandwidth.

The packets are moved around the internet using a method called packet switching. The
use of relatively small data packets allows a data path to be shared. Different packets from
the same 'conversation' may be sent over different routes. The internet has an end-to-end
principle where the end points (source and destination) are responsible for checking that
everything that has been sent is received, as appropriate. This type of communication
between sender and receiver is known as connectionless (rather than dedicated). Most
traffic over the internet uses packet switching and the internet is basically a
connectionless network.

In any packet switched network, the router is the key device. The router examines the
destination address of an incoming packet and decides which of its interfaces the packet
should be sent to, until it eventually arrives at the destination. On domestic routers, such
as that provided within your 'home hub', there are only two interfaces: the LAN and the
WAN. Here the decision is simple. All packets that are not for the local network are
directed to the WAN interface. Core backbone routers have many different interfaces. Due
to the meshed nature of the internet backbone, it may be possible to get to a specific
destination over several different paths.

Each router has a set of rules — a routing table — that it uses to decide what to do with
an incoming packet. Each packet is treated individually and a separate routing decision is
made for each one. Each router-to-router link is called a hop; the router determines the
best 'next hop' to allow the packet to move on its way to its final destination. If any part of
the communications infrastructure fails, the router chooses a different route and
subsequent packets may be sent over a different path.

Routers can be configured so that they select the best route or can share data with each
other so that they learn the best routes. This is how the core routers work. The routing
table is constantly updated with information about the optimal route for packets to take.
 Packet switching

What if the internet is "busy"

At times, some routers may receive packets faster than they are able to route them on.
These packets are buffered in memory and this introduces delays (referred to as a 'high
latency'). For most traffic this is not an issue; it just means that the web page takes longer
to load or a file download taking more time than expected. However, for other network
traffic these delays may have more of an impact, particularly if you are talking over a voice
call or playing an online game. If the buffering is severe, the router many run out of
memory and packets are simply discarded.

IP packets contain a Type of Service (ToS) field in the packet header; this makes it
possible to mark packets with a priority level and thus request special treatment i.e. to be
placed at the front of the queue of packets to be routed. However, routers may choose to
implement or ignore these requests.

Can a packet get lost?

A situation can occur where packets are sent to a destination address which is
unreachable. Routers, being unaware of this, may route such packets towards a default
device. This default device may also pass the packet on, causing a loop to occur. In such
circumstances, a packet could loop forever between routers. To prevent this, internet
packets have a time to live (TTL) counter in their header. This is initially set when the
packet is created, and reduced by one every time it goes through a router. If the counter
reaches zero, the packet is discarded.
 A Level Circuit switching

Before the internet came into being, the largest global network was the telephone network.
In some ways it was similar to the internet in that it was a collection of interconnected
networks. These interconnections were telephone exchanges or telephone switches. They
carried analogue voice signals rather than digital data, and faced the same issue of
selecting the best path for the signals to travel.

In this telephone nework, if someone wished to make a call, a signal was sent across the
connection to request the line. Each telephone switch would then select the appropriate
route and reserve capacity on the line and send the request on. This built up a fixed path
of guaranteed capacity between the source and the destination over which the
conversation could be held. If any of the links did not have capacity, the connection would
be refused and the call would be dropped. The caller would have to try again.

Circuit switching

This technique is called circuit switching and is still in use today for some parts of the
telephone network.

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