Internet in Down, But How Does the Internet Work?
So the “Internet” is down. Due to cable damage. But Google seems to be going, and Starlink users are completely unaffected.
Why?
I would explain, but first, you need to understand how the Internet works.
So the “internet” is basically you opening a document from another’s person computer. Think about it this way…
If I have a Word document on my computer, and you connect your computer to mine using an Ethernet cable
You’ll be able to see “Kevin’s computer” on yours, and open my folders to open that word document that’s on my computer.
That document however, is not a word document.
It’s an HTML document.
And typically that HTML document makes references and pulls data from other
documents such as CSS AND JS to make up the beautiful website you see.
Just like MS Word opens DOCX files, the software that can open all those HTML/CSS document and make sense of all those data, is called a browser.
For example, Google Chrome.
Tadaaa you just discovered basic internet 101.
But really, that’s just networking, How about the main internet?
That is like me connecting everyone’s computer on my street with a cable. (well, multiple cables, but you get). And all of us, have HTML and CSS files on out laptops. So I can see the ones on other people’s laptops, and they can see mine.
I can just go to my web browser and say, “Show me Victoria’s HTML Files” And because Victoria’s laptop is connected via the cables, my browser
will find the HTML Files on Victoria’s laptop and open it.
We would come back to that cos right now, I know what you are thinking.
How does it know the HTML files from Victoria specifically if they are multiple laptops connected? And someone else might also be bearing Victoria right?
Well that’s where usernames comes in.
But not actually usernames cos it’s not letters, it’s more like numbers and 3 dots dividing them, it’s called an IP Address.
Each HTML file on the network is always assigned a unique set of numbers called IP address.
So really, all you need to type into your browser, is the IP address of the specific file you want, and the browser know which one you want and will open it.
An IP address looks like this -> 141.368.27.780
In fact, the IP Address above is for a HTML file belonging to a company called Google.
You can actually go ahead and type that number into your browser address bar and see what file it opens 😉
I know I know
Nobody types IP Addresses in the browser 😅
Cos IP Address would be hard to remember, imagine trying to recall 141.368.27.
780 😂😂
So in order to make IP Addresses easier to remember, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) were created.
And from the name “Uniform Resource Locator”
You already know what it does.
It’s a combination of words that helps locate the actual IP Address, and eventually, the HTML files you need.
So when you type in the URL http://google.
com, your browser uses that URL to locate the IP Address 141.368.27.780 to open the actual file
So now if I want to open the HTML file on Victoria’s computer, I just need to type in Victoria’s URL
And that’s how the internet works.
Well, at least in basic simplified form, that’s how it works.
So back to linking everyone’s computers with cables.
You can imagine the stress of trying to do that, trying to connect everyone with a physical cable, we would have had network poles similar to that of electricity.
And that’s what was done in the early days of the internet (and even until now in some cases)
Not until we discovered, Wireless✨
And connected everyone within the local region wirelessly using wireless technologies such as
3G, 4G, 5G and of course Wi-Fi amongst others.
However, while going wireless was certainly convenient, it’s far from perfect.
The problem with Wireless technology is, that it cannot travel very far, and it’s way slower.
So even if we enjoy 4G wireless connectivity beamed from our local network mast, for the internet to get to the mast, it has to be wired.
And some people with the funds, just go ahead and run the wires directly to their homes and offices, that’s where you heard about Fibre.
Now Fibre is not the act of running cables instead of wireless, Fibre Optics, is the kind of cable. They are different kinds but Fibre is the fastest cos it’s made of glass and uses light to transfer data, so data transfers sort of at the speed of light,
if we ignore resistance.
Whichever way, wireless can never be as fast or travel as far or as reliable as cables, not even 5G 😅
If you choose to run cables over 5G and use an Ethernet cable over Wi-Fi, your network is going to be so much better.
No wonder for everyone to be truly connected, all over the world, between continents and countries, we need to actually use cables.
Fiber Optics cables.
The whole world is connected with many cables running under the sea is how we have the world wide web… of cables.
But that’s not how the term World Wide Web (www) came about though, I’m just pointing out that’s how it literally is.
Anyways, because of these network of cables and wireless technologies, I can now tell my browser to fetch me an HTML file from
anywhere in the world belonging to anyone in the world, and it would open right up.
That ladies and gentlemen, is The Internet we know it today.
Okay, so who the access to those cables and redistributes the network wired or wirelessly to your local region?
Well those are your Internet Service Providers (ISP)
They are also responsible for setting up and managing all the logistics and
equipment to make the network get to you at home, that’s why you pay them to use their network and “buy data”
The internet itself, belongs to nobody. You pay no one to be on the internet, just to access it.
The question now is,
What if Victoria disconnects his laptop from the network or rather, the internet.
Well, I won’t be able to open his HTML file any longer.
When I type his URL, it would give me an error.
The truth is, people do not really save those files on their personal computer any more
They save it on what’s called a Server.
A Server, is a bunch of computers specifically used for keeping those HTML files (or you can say, for hosting websites)
And just like Victoria disconnecting his laptop from the network, a server can be
disconnected, that’s where you hear thinks like server is down, and the website wouldn’t load up.
But imagine the server is not down
But rather, the cable was cut or damaged.
That’s what happened today and still happening.
So when you type in a URL and it doesn’t open, it’s because that server has been disconnected, cos it is in another country, and the cable connecting us
together, has been damaged.
So my browser, can’t find the file.
But Google is going? 👀
Well, while every server across the Atlantic might has been disconnected.
Servers within the country are actually still connected.
So any websites hosted locally on local servers should actually still open up.
Similarly, someone in the US might not be able to open a website hosted in
Nigeria, cos of the damaged cables, but they would be able to open all other websites hosted in the US.
But it’s really not that straight forward cos of many other factors however..
Big tech companies like Google and YouTube likes to host different versions on their websites locally in each country they have presence in.
For speed. Cos the further away the server, the longer it takes the website to load up cos the data has to actually travel, but if it’s hosted locally, it’s much faster. That makes sense right?
Only problem is that it’s very expensive so really only big tech companies do it.
And even if it is hosted locally, it still has to be updated and sync with the rest of the world, so it might
eventually go down too if things aren’t fixed early.
So yes, Google and co is going cos they are kinda hosted in Nigeria.
But that other website wouldn’t go cos it’s hosted in some other country connected by a cable that is damaged.
Also, I wanted to mention Starlink users are not affected.
Cos Starlink works with satellites instead of the cables.
Long story about how exactly that works just know that the satellites are doing the same the cable does but in the sky rather than under the sea.
Hence they aren’t affected by all these.
You might say, but hey that’s wireless, true, so shouldn’t it be slower and travel less distances that wired, that’s also true.
To explain the distance part would be too long but for the speed part, Starlink is actually slower than a proper wired connection and many times even slower than 5G. It was made to give reasonably speeds internet to remote places, the only reason it seems to be so fast in Nigeria is because our local ISPs are just all very useless, with lack of infrastructures and overcrowded bandwidths.
So Starlink becomes faster which shouldn’t be the case.
Anyways. That’s it.
If you have any questions let me know.
And OBVIOUSLY, this entire article is overly simplified. It’s a whole lot more complex than this.
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