Quantum Computing and Communications: An Engineering Approach

11

Surfing the WEB on Quantum Basis

11.1 INTRODUCTION TO WEB SURFING

The number of hosts and the generated traffic on the Internet grows exponentially day by day. The Internet Protocol (IP) which was originally designed for data transfer among academic institutes slowly but surely enmeshes our globe. At the same time the original aim of this network and protocol passed through significant changes. This means not only the appearance of Internet access in each household but state-of-the-art infocom systems use or start using IP as their networking layer protocol. The new, so-called ALL-IP concept is depicted in Fig. 11.1. The global infocom network consists of an IP-based backbone and various kinds of access networks, which can be both wired or wireless, and of course it is connected to the Internet as well. Thus users and customers can exploit end-to-end IP connectivity.

The World Wide Web (WWW or simply WEB) is sitting on the Internet and enables users to access WEB content placed anywhere. The spectrum of such contents is quite broad from weather forecasts and stock exchange data through to submarine images about the sea-bottom to movie/music trailers. From a technical point of view Internet content is delivered in IP packets which provide a datagram-type bearer service. This means that the wanted content is segmented into smaller parts and these parts are put into packets. For the sake of simplicity a connection between two points on the Internet are connected together in the ...