The Internet's Key to Communication: IP

Introduction

"Inter" and "net," meaning an interwoven web of networks--on the surface level, that's all there really is to it.

But if you were to dive deeper into how these individual networks communicate to form the Internet we know of today, you'd find that the answer lies with protocols.

This post will cover the most common, and perhaps most important, protocol of them all: Internet Protocol (IP).

Routers: The Traffic Conductors of the Internet

While we may think of the internet as a web of sorts, not every one of the millions of networks is connected to one another.

Because much of the Internet is connected through wires (wireless communication cannot sustain long distances), to do so would call for lots and lots of wires and lots and lots of money.

We certainly don't want to have parts of the Internet cut off from others. The solution?

Routers.

These machines are like traffic conductors, in that they dictate where information will go based on their IP addresses.

So, for instance, if an IP address started with 3, the router would either direct its information:

• straight to the network it wants to go to (if it has access)

• to another router that's one step closer to the network it wants to go to

So a problem that was once took millions upon millions of dollars now probably takes half that much.

Final Thoughts

So, in short, IP:

• allows for communication between networks

• stores the origin and destination of data

  • which can be read by routers

Thanks for reading!