Sometime in the mid 1960’s, during the Cold War, it became apparent that there was a need for a bombproof communications system. A concept was devised to link computers together throughout the country. With such a system in place large sections of the country could be nuked and messages could still get through.

In the beginning, only government “think tanks” and a few universities were linked. Basically the Internet was an emergency military communications system operated by the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). The whole operation was referred to as ARPANET.

In time, ARPANET computers were installed at every university in the United States that had defense related funding. Gradually, the Internet had gone from a military pipeline to a communications tool for scientists. As more scholars came online, the administration of the system transferred from ARPA to the National Science Foundation.

Years later, businesses began using the Internet and the administrative responsibilities were once again transferred.

At this time no one party “operates” the Internet, there are several entities that “oversee” the system and the protocols that are involved.

The speed of the Internet has changed the way people receive information. It combines the immediacy of broadcast with the in-depth coverage of newspapers…making it a perfect source for news and weather information.

Internet usage is at an all time high. Almost 100 million U.S. adults are now going online every month, according to New York-based Mediamark Research. That’s half of American adults and a 27 percent increase over 1999 in the number who surf the Web.

There also appears to be a continuing gender shift in the number of American adults going online. In early 2000, Mediamark reported the milestone that women for the first time ever accounted for half of the online adult population. Now 51 percent of U.S. surfers - some 50.6 million - are women.

There are several ways to access the Internet. Learn about the options that are available to you.

Want to know more? Click here to find out how information moves through the Internet.