Where does the Internet come from?

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers used to deliver that vast collection of digital pages we call the World Wide Web. They're not the same thing. It's actually an enormous system of cables, real physical cables traveling all around the world, connecting our devices to the servers that store the pages we want to view.

How does it work?

        First, your device needs to connect to your Internet Service Providers network Congratulations, You're now part of the Internet. By entering the address of the website you want to visit, you send an electronic request for information over your phone line or cable to your ISP. The ISP sends the request to a server further up the chain, a domain name, server or DNS, which acts as a kind of directory. The DNS looks for a match for the address you've typed in when it finds it. The request is sent to the server hosting that website. That server could be in a different country, so the request needs to travel along cables both under the ground and under the sea to reach its destination.

 Yet it really does go under the sea.

The subsea fiber optic cables literally connect the world, linking continent to continent. With the exception of Antartica, 95 percent of international digital traffic travels this way. Just think most of your tweets and emails have been under water running under the seabed. These thousands of kilometers of fiber optic cable are known as the Internet's backbone. Without them, the global Internet just wouldn't work. Amazingly, they're only as thick as a garden hose, making them prone to the occasional shark bite. So if you're Internet slow a hungry shark, it's never a big problem. Though the cable networks are so vast, the request simply reroutes. Country to popular belief, the Internet is never down. The request finally reaches the data center housing the server where the website lets the server sends the requested information back across the network, broken down into chunks of data called packets.

 Watch your device puts back together like a jigsaw to form the web page you see on your screen. And all this happens in the blink of an eye all over the world, millions of times per second.