Life With Internet

Internet was born long before we have noticed it. Today we can not imagine life without it. There are many people who believe that internet is world wide web (WWW) and vice versa. Of course, web is only one of the services that are available over the internet. The fact is that our lives depend on the internet services even if we don't have a computer. It it difficult to imagine life without internet as it was difficult to imagine life without electricity thirty years ago. Internet is a worldwide network. And only a network. Services are what helps us to send a message or to do something.

Internet Service Providers
In order to connect to the internet you need a contract with some internet service provider (ISP). Access to the internet can be made available over analog phone line, ISDN, various xDSL technologies, fiber to the home (FTTH), wireless networks, cable network, etc. The speeds vary but it is not uncommon to have 100 Mbit/s or even 1 Gbit/s via FTTH. Regardless of the connection speed, internet access is a must.

Email
Sending electronic messages is one of the very popular internet services. In order to send and receive a message you need at least two mail servers, one for sending and one for receiving the message. Since email address is a prerequisite for any business, not just online, each company has at least one mail server. Fortunately there are many free email service providers. One of the most popular and famous is Gmail, free email from Google. If you don't have a Gmail account you are missing a lot.

World Wide Web
WWW is probably the most widely used internet service. This is probably the reason that www means the same as internet to many people. Having a homepage is a must. Not just for companies but also for communities, clubs, organizations and also individuals. Writing a blog is very popular these days. Because of this popularity there is a huge competition among web hosting providers. The prices are low, setting up a website is pretty simple and just anybody can have his own website.

Spam
Spam is not an internet service but it is a direct consequence of cheap or even free internet services. It is so easy to create an email and send it to any address. And sending the message to millions of worldwide email addresses is no different. Email spam is a big problem. There are many companies that are offering anti-spam products or services. One excellent anti-spam filter is used by Gmail. You will rarely receive a spam email. But there is also spam on the web. There are millions of pages that offer no useful content. When you are searching for something it is very likely that you will land on such page.

Of course, there are also other services on the internet. Sending IP packets is simple and every modern appliance or consumer electronic equipment has an ethernet connector. We can expect a huge expansion of communication over internet.