Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology

Module - 2
Internet Basics

1. What is the internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet
protocol to link several billion devices worldwide. It began in the 1960s as a US-army-funded
research project, then evolved into a public infrastructure in the 1980s with the support of many
public universities and private companies.

The connections between devices in the internet are a combination of old-fashioned copper
cables, fiber-optic cables, wireless radio connections and satellite links. The Internet has one
very simple job: to move information from one place to another. It treats emails, web pages, chat
messages, and everything else as packets of information. This simple design allows us to run
new softwares or applications on top of it.

The internet is a network of networks and no one person, company, organization or government
runs the internet. Civil society and Internet users, the private sector, governments, national and
international organizations, researchers, technical and academic communities all are involved in
the decision of how the internet runs. It is open and free.

According to statistics published by Statista in April 2020, there were around 4.57 billion active
internet users globally.

2. How does the internet works

The internet can be imagined as a huge cable that is spread around the world. Devices such as
computers, laptops, tablets, servers are all connected to this cable (the internet). Your computer
is not directly connected to the internet. Rather, it is connected through an ISP (Internet Service
Provider).

Now, suppose you want to visit taibahacademy.com. To do this, you will open your browser,
type in the address bar and press enter. How does this all work ? The computer will then send
this address through your ISP to the Internet. The location of taibahacademy.com will be
identified and will be sent back through the ISP to your computer and hence you will be able to
see the website.

Now, suppose ComputerA and ComputerB are both connected to the internet via the same
internet connection. ComputerA wants to visit facebook.com and ComputerB wants to visit
google.com. How will the ISP know which computer to send the requested website ?

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 Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology
Module - 2
Internet Basics

This is done using IP addresses and a hardware called router. An IP (Internet Protocol) address is
an address that uniquely identifies a particular computer connected to the Internet. A router is a
device that is installed in places where two or more parts of the Internet intersects. It helps to
send the data or information through the internet.

So, when ComputerA sends a request to visit facebook.com, the router takes the request and
sends it to the ISP. The ISP sends this data to other routers which eventually goes to facebook.
The data from facebook now comes back through the same path via the routers and the ISP to the
ComputerA. The same thing happens with ComputerB. Since both the computers are uniquely
identified using an IP address the requested data is always sent to the correct computer.

Fig. How Internet Works

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written permission from Taibah Academy.
 Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology
Module - 2
Internet Basics

3. Types of internet connections

There are various ways to connect laptops, desktops, mobile phones, tablets to the Internet. Some
of the most commonly used Internet connections are:

● Dial-Up
● Cable
● DSL
● Fiber
● Wireless
● Satellite
● Cellular

Dial-Up:

Dial-up access is cheap but slow. A dial-up modem connects to the Internet after the computer
dials a phone number. This analog signal is converted to digital via the modem and sent over a
landline. Since a computer shares the same line as the telephone, they can’t be active at the same
time.

Cable:

Cable Internet connection is a form of broadband access. Through the use of a cable, modem
users can access the Internet over cable TV lines. Cable modems can provide extremely fast
access to the Internet.

DSL:

DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line. It is an internet connection that is always ​on​. This uses
2 lines so your phone is not tied up when your computer is connected. There is also no need to
dial a phone number to connect. In a DSL internet connection, both voice and internet data can
flow over the same telephone line at the same time. It has a DSL modem which filters the voice
and data.

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written permission from Taibah Academy.
 Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology
Module - 2
Internet Basics

Fiber:

A fiber internet connection provides the fastest internet speed today. It uses light to transfer the
data through the optical fiber cable. In other forms of the internet, connection data is transferred
in electrical form, so signals get weaker and weaker at large distances. Fiber is more expensive
than the DSL and cable.

Wireless:

Wireless or Wi-Fi, does not use telephone lines or cables to connect to the internet. Instead, it
uses radio frequency. One of the greatest advantages of wireless internet connections is that it is
always ​on and can be accessed from any location that falls within its network coverage. Wireless
connections are made possible through the use of a modem, which picks up Internet signals and
sends them to other devices.

Satellite:

Satellite internet is the internet which uses the path of outer space. Satellite internet signal travels
more than 46,000 miles (From ISP to user through satellite). In certain areas where broadband
connection is not yet offered, a satellite Internet option may be available. The enormous distance
that a signal travels from earth to satellite and back again, provides a delayed connection
compared to cable and DSL.

Cellular:

Cellular technology provides wireless Internet access through cell phones. The speeds vary
depending on the provider, but the most common are 3G (3rd Generation) and 4G (4th
Generation) speeds. In this network, radio waves are used to transfer signals to and from the
mobile phone. In cellular technology, the geographic area is divided into cells, where each cell
has its own tower and frequency slot. Normally, these cellular towers are connected through a
wire or more specifically optical fiber cable. These optical fiber cables are laid under the ground
or ocean for providing national or international connectivity.

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written permission from Taibah Academy.
 Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology
Module - 2
Internet Basics
Hotspot:

A hotspot is a technology which is relatively similar to Wi-Fi. Hotspot provides internet access
to users via WLAN in the specific area. Hotspots utilize Wi-Fi technology, which allows
electronic devices to connect to the Internet or exchange data wirelessly through radio waves.

4. What is the world wide web (www) and how it works

What is the world wide web:

The World Wide Web (www), also known as the Web, is an information system where web
pages, documents, photographs, videos and other web resources are accessible over the Internet.
These are identified by an url (Uniform Resource Locator). The resources of the web are
transferred via an application protocol called HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). These
resources are accessed by clients using a software such as a web browser and are published by a
software known as a web server.

Difference between the Web and the Internet:

The Internet is a worldwide network of computers whereas the Web is the worldwide collection
of web pages, documents, photographs, audios, videos and animations you can access over the
Internet.

Some common terminologies:

● Client: A client is any software which ​requests a web resource such as a web page,
document, audio, video etc. A web browser is a common example of a client.

● Server: A machine or computer that stores web pages, documents, audios, videos and
other web resources. When a client requests for a web resource, the server ​responds with
that particular resource.

● DNS: DNS stands for Domain Name Server. Every website address such as
taibahacademy.com has an associated IP address such as 167.71.215.117. This number is
hard to remember so the DNS was invented to make things easy. DNS are special servers
that match up a web address to its corresponding IP address. When you type a web

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written permission from Taibah Academy.
 Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology
Module - 2
Internet Basics

address in your browser, the browser looks at the DNS to find the website's IP address
before it can retrieve the website. The browser needs to find out which server the website
is on, so it can send HTTP messages to the right place.

● HTTP: HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It is an application protocol that
defines a language for clients and servers to speak to each other. HTTP is the foundation
of data communication for the World Wide Web.

● HTML: HTML stands for HyperText MarkUp Language. All the web pages on the
internet are written in this language. This is a standard language that every browser
understands. It consists of tags which can contain words, paragraphs, images, videos and
much more. When a browser receives a webpage it looks into these tags and creates the
page for the client based on the tags. To see the html of any webpage, right-click on the
webpage and click “View Page Resource”.

<html>
<head>
<title>Demo</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Welcome to Taibah Academy</p>
</body>
</html>

● URL: An url also known as Uniform Resource Locator is the webpage address that you
see in the long bar at the top of your web browser.

For eg:
http://www.taibahacademy.com
https://taibahacademy.com/diploma-in-islamic-studies
http://campus.taibahacademy.com

Let’s break the url:

● http stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and https stands for HTTP Secure.
They specify the communication protocol to use for the request and response. The
HTTPS has an additional encryption layer or security layer which makes the

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written permission from Taibah Academy.
 Online Diploma in Islamic Studies - Information Technology
Module - 2
Internet Basics

communication between the client and the server secure. The web browsers
usually automatically prepend http:// to the URL, if omitted.

● www.taibahacademy.com is the address or the domain name of the server. This is

a uniquely identified name. Many websites using domain names that do not start
with www, such as campus.taibahacademy.com. Here “campus” is called the
sub-domain.

● In the url, https://taibahacademy.com/diploma-in-islamic-studies we have a text

after the domain name “/diploma-in-islamic-studies”. This is the location of
another webpage which is hosted in the same server machine. In this way, we can
have multiple web pages under the same domain.

How does the web work:

When you type a web address into your browser the following takes place:

● The browser goes to the DNS server, and finds the real address of the server that the
website is on.

● The browser sends an HTTP request message to the server, asking it to send a copy of the
website to the client. This message, and all other data sent between the client and the
server, is sent across your internet connection.

● If the server approves the client's request, the server sends the client a "200 OK"
message, which means "You have access", and then starts sending the website's files to
the browser as a series of small chunks called data packets.

● The browser assembles the data packets into a complete website and displays it to you.

Reproduction and modification of this material in any form other than personal use is strictly prohibited without prior
written permission from Taibah Academy.