Internet and its Services | IBPS PO Prelims & Mains Preparation - Bank Exams PDF Download

Introduction

The Internet has gained popularity and emerged as an important and efficient means of communication. The idea of introducing the Internet was to allow millions of people to share information and ideas, sound, video clips using their computers across the world. The Internet is a world wide network of networked computers those are able to exchange information with each other.

Internet

• Internet stands for International Network, which began in 1950’s by Vint Cerf known as the Father of Internet. Internet is a ‘network of networks’ that consists millions of private and public networks of local to global scope. Basically, network is a group of two or more computer systems linked together.

History of Internet

• In 1969, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Utah were connected as the beginning of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) using 50 kbits circuits. It was the world’s first operational packet switching network.
• In mid 80’s another federal agency, the National Science Foundation, created a new high capacity network called NSFnet, which was more capable than ARPANET. The only drawback of NSFnet was that it allowed only the academic research on its network and not any kind of private business on it. So, private organisations and people started working to build their own networks, which were later interconnected with ARPANET and NSFnet to form the Internet.

Advantages of the Internet
The advantages of the Internet are as follows

• Allows you to easily communicate with other people.
• Global reach enables one to connect anyone on the Internet.
• Publishing documents on the Internet saves paper.
• A valuable resource for companies to advertise and conduct business.
• Greater access to information reduces research times.

Disadvantages of the Internet

The disadvantages of the Internet are as follows

• It is a major source of computer viruses.
• Messages sent across the Internet can be easily intercepted and are open to abuse by others.
• Much of the information is not checked and may be incorrect or irrelevant.
• Unsuitable and undesirable material available that sometimes are used by notorious people such as terrorists.
• Cyber frauds may take place involving Credit/Debit card numbers and details.

Internet Connections

• Bandwidth and cost are the two factors that help you in deciding which Internet connection is to use. The speed of Internet access depends on the bandwidth.

Some of the Internet connections available for Internet access are as follows

• Dial-Up Connection: A Dial-up is a method of connecting to the Internet using an existing telephone. Dial-up connection uses the telephone line to connect to the Internet. When a user initiates a dial-up connection, the modem dials a phone number of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that is designated to receive dialup calls. The ISP then establishes the connection, which usually takes about ten seconds and is accompanied by several beeping and buzzing sounds.
• Broadband Connection: The term broadband commonly refers to high speed Internet access that is always on and faster than the traditional dial-up access. It uses a telephone line to connect to the Internet. Broadband access allows users to connect to the Internet at greater speed than a standard 256 KB modem or dial-up access. Broadband includes several high speed transmission technologies such as follows
  • Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): It is a popular broadband connection. It provides Internet access by transmitting digital data over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL is the most common type of broadband service. It uses the existing copper telephone lines.
  • Cable Modem: This service enables cable operators to provide broadband using the same co-axial cables that deliver pictures and sound to your TV set. Most cable modems are external devices that have two connections, one to the cable wall outlet and the other to a computer. They provide transmission speed of 1.5 Mbps or more.
  • Broadband over Power Line (BPL): BPL is the delivery of broadband over the existing low and medium voltage electric power distribution network. BPL is good for areas, where there are no other broadband connections, but power infrastructure exists. e.g. Rural areas.
• Wireless Connection: Wireless broadband connects a home or business to the Internet using a radio link between the customer’s location and the service provider’s facility. Wireless broadband can be mobile or fixed. Unlike DSL and cable, wireless broadband requires neither a modem nor cables. It can be easily established in areas, where it is not feasible to deploy DSL or cable. Some ways to connect the Internet wirelessly are as follows
  • Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi): It is a universal wireless networking technology that utilises radio frequencies to transfer data. Wi-Fi allows high speed Internet connections without the use of cables or wires. Wi-Fi networks can be use for public Internet access at ‘hotspot’ such as restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, airports, convention centers and city parks.
  • Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX): It is one of the hottest broadband wireless technologies around today. WiMAX systems are expected to deliver broadband access services to residential and enterprise customers in an economical way. WiMAX has the ability to provide service even in areas that are difficult for wired infrastructure to reach and the ability to overcome the physical limitations of traditional wired infrastructure.
  • Mobile Wireless Broadband Services: These services are also becoming available from mobile telephone service providers and others. These services are generally appropriate for mobile customers and require a special PC card with a built-in antenna that plugs into a user’s computer. Generally, they provide lower speeds in the range of several hundred kbps. 

Interconnecting Protocols

• A protocol is a set of rules that govern data communications. A protocol defines what is communicated, how it is communicated and when it is communicated.

Generally, some of protocols used to communicate via an Internet are as follows

• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
  • Transmission Control Protocol (TCP): It provides reliable transport service, i.e. it ensures that message sent from sender to receiver is properly routed. TCP converts messages into a set of packets  at the source which are then reassembled back into messages at the destination. 
  • Internet Protocol (IP): It allows different computers to communicate by creating a network of networks. IP handles the dispatch of packets over the network. 
• Telnet Protocol: Telnet is a program that runs on the computer and connects PC to a server on the network. The protocol used on the Internet or Local Area Network. Telnet session will started by entering valid username and password.
• Usenet Protocol: The usenet service allows a group of Internet users to exchange their views/ideas and information on some common topic that is of interest to all the members belonging to that same group.
• Several such groups exist on the Internet are called newsgroups. Usenet has no central server or administration.
• Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP): PPP is a dial account which puts your computer directly on the Internet. A modem is required for such connection which transmits the data 9600 bits per second.
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP): It is the standard protocol for E-mail services on a TCP/IP network. It provides the ability to send and receive E-mail message.
• Wireless Application Protocol (WAP): A WAP browser is a commonly used Web browser for small mobile devices such as cell phones.
• Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP): It allows delivery of voice communication over ‘IP’ Internet Protocol networks. e.g. IP calls.

Terms Related to Internet

• World Wide Web (WWW: WWW was introduced on 13th March, 1989. The world wide web is a system of Internet servers that supports hypertext and multimedia to access several Internet protocols on a single interface. The world wide web is often abbreviated as the Web or WWW. The world wide web is a way of exchanging information between computers on the Internet.
• Web Page: The backbone of the world wide web is made of files, called pages or Web pages, containing information and links to resources - both text and multimedia - throughout the Internet. It is created using HTML. There are basically two main types of web page as static and dynamic. The main or first page of a Website is known as home page.
• Website: A group of Web pages that follow the same theme and are connected together with hyperlinks is called Website. In other words, “A Website is a collection of digital documents, primarily HTML files, that are linked together and that exist on the Web under the same domain.” e.g. http://www.carwale.com is a Website while http://www.carwale.com/new/ is a Web page.
• Web Browser: It is a software application that is used to locate, retrieve and also display content on the world wide web, including Web pages. Web browsers are programs used to explore the Internet. We can install more than one Web browsers on a single computer. The user can navigate through files, folders and Websites with the help of a browser. There are two types of Web browsers as follows
  • Text Web Browser: A Web browser that displays only text-based information is known as text Web browser. e.g. Lynx, which provides access to the Internet in the text mode only.
  • Graphical Web Browser: A Web browser that supports both text and graphic information is known as graphical Web browser. e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera. Note: The first graphical Web browser was NCSA Mosaic.
• Web Server: The Web browser is a client that requests HTML files from Web servers. The server computer will deliver those Web pages to the computers that request them and may also do other processing with the Web pages. Every Web server that is connected to the Internet is given a unique address, i.e. IP address made up of a series of four numbers between 0 to 255 separated by periods. e.g. Apache HTTP Server, Internet Information Services (IIS), Lighttpd, etc.
• WebAddressandURL: A Web address identifies the location of a specific Web page on the Internet, such as http://www.learnyoga.com. On the Web, Web addresses are called URLs. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is the Web address for a Website or a Web page. Tim Berners Lee created the first URL in 1991 to allow the publishing of hyperlinks on the world wide web. e.g. ‘‘http://www. google.com/services/index.htm’’
  http:// — Protocol identifier
  www — World Wide Web google.com — Domain name
  /services/ — Directory index.htm — Web page

DomainName

• Domain is a group of network resources assigned to a group of users. A domain name is a way to identify and locate computers connected to the Internet. A domain name must be unique. It always have two or more parts, separated by period/dot  e.g. google.com, yahoo.com, etc.
• Domain Abbreviation: Domains are organised by the type of organisations and by country. A three-letter abbreviation indicating the organisation and usually two-letter abbreviation indicating the country name.

Most common domain abbreviations for organisation are as follows

• .info Informational organisation
• .com Commercial
• .gov Government
• .edu Educational
• .mil Military
• .net Network resources
• .org Non-profit organisation

Some domain abbreviations for country are as follows

• .in India
• .au Australia
• .fr France
• .nz New Zealand
• .uk United Kingdom 

Blogs

• A blog is a Website or Web page in which an individual records opinions, links to other site, on regular basis. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to its topic. 
• Most blogs, are primarily textual, although some focus on art, photographs, videos, music and audio. These blogs are referred to as edublogs. The entries of blog is also known as posts.

Newsgroups

• An area on a computer network especially the Internet, devoted to the discussion of a specified topic is known as Newsgroup.
• Online discussion group that allows interaction through electronic bulletin board system and chat sessions.

Search Engine

• It is a Website that provides the required data on specific topics. Search engines turn the Web into a powerful tool for finding information on any topic.
• When a search engine returns the links to web pages corresponding to the keywords entered is called a hit, otherwise called a miss. Many search engines also have directories or lists of topics that are organised into categories. Browsing these directories, is also a very efficient way to find information on a given topic.
  Here are some of the most popular search engines
• Google http://www.google.com
• AltaVista http://www.altavista.com
• Yahoo  http://www.yahoo.com
• Hotbot http://www.hotbot.com
• Lycos http://www.lycos.com
• Excite http://www.excite.com
• WebCrawler http://www.webcrawler.com 

E-mail (Electronic mail)

• E-mail is an electronic version of sending and receiving letter. Electronic mail lets you send and receive messages in electronic form.
• E-mail is transmitted between computer systems, which exchange messages or pass them onto other sites according to certain Internet protocols or rules for exchanging E-mail. To use E-mail, a user must have an E-mail address. Emoticons or smileys are used in an E-mail to express emotions or feelings clearly. Storage area for E-mail messages is called mail box.
• E-mail address consists of two parts separated by @ symbol – the first part is user name and the second part is host name (domain name). However, spaces are not allowed within the E-mail address. e.g. arihantbooks@gmail.com Here, arihantbooks is a username and gmail.com is a host name.

Video Conferencing

• It is a communication technology that integrates video and audio to connect users anywhere in the world as if they were in the same room.
• This term usually refers to communication between three or more users who are in atleast two locations. Each user or group of users who are participating in a video conference typically must have a computer, a camera, a microphone, a video screen and a sound system.

E-learning

• E-learning (Electronic Learning) refers to the electronic mode of delivering learning, training or educational programs to users. It is the mode of acquiring knowledge by means of the Internet and computer based training programs. 

E-banking

• E-banking (Electronic Banking) is also known as Internet Banking or Online Banking.
• E-banking means any user with a personal computer and a browser can get connected to his bank’s Website to perform any of the virtual banking functions. All the services that the bank has permitted on the Internet are displayed in menu.

E-shopping

• E-shopping (Electronic Shopping) or online shopping is the process of buying goods and services from merchants who sell on the Internet.
• Books, clothing, household appliances, toys, hardware, software and health insurance are just some of the hundreds of products, consumers can buy from an online store. Some E-shopping sites are Naaptol, Flipkart, Yebbi, Homeshop 18, etc.

E-reservation

• E-reservation (Electronic Reservation) means making a reservation for a service via Internet. You need not personally go to an office or a counter to book/reserve railways, airways tickets, hotel rooms, tourist packages, etc.
• Examples of E-reservation sites are as follows (i) www.irctc.com (ii) www.makemytrip.com (iii) www.yatra.com (iv) www.bookingsite.com

Social Networking

• It is the use of Internet based social media programs to make connections with friends, family, classmates, customers, clients etc. It can occur for social purposes, business purposes or both.
• Social networking has grown to become one of the largest and most influential components of the web. The most popular social networking sites are Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, etc. 

Note: Facebook was developed by Mark Zuckerberg  

E-commerce

• E-commerce (Electronic Commerce) includes sharing business information, maintaining business relationships and conducting business transactions by means of telecommunication networks or process of trading goods over the Internet.
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the electronic transfer of a business transaction between sender or receiver computer.

Note: E-trading is the process of trading the goods and items over the Internet.

M-commerce

• M-commerce (Mobile Commerce) provides the application for buying and selling goods or services through wireless Internet enabled handheld devices. It involves new technologies, services and business models.