Networking Fundamentals

Understanding internet

Although they're often used synonymously, there is a subtle difference between an internet and the Internet. When spelled with a lowercase i, internet is derived from inter-network and refers to the connectivity between different networks. When capitalized, the Internet refers to the services that are publicly available outside of our own networks and the supporting infrastructure.

Let me clarify this with two examples. Company A's infrastructure connecting directly to company B's infrastructure would be classed as an inter-network. In this instance, the connections are not publicly available. However, when you connect to a web page such as Facebook or Hotmail, or to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server, this is classed ...