Course Learning

The internet is an ever-growing network of connected devices that spans the world.

These devices can share information with each other through cables that stretch between towns, cities, countries and continents.

The internet allows information to be sent from one part of the world to another part in less than one second.

So that we can view our favourite webpages, play games, watch videos and communicate on the internet, we need to have some internet hardware.

Look at the slideshow to find more about the role of each piece of internet hardware.

When information travels to your computer, it is broken into tiny pieces called packets.

These packets don’t all go the same way — they can take different routes to get to you.

Special machines called routers choose the quickest path for each packet.

Some packets might travel underground, some under the ocean, and some through the air — but they all arrive and join back together on your computer!

The data packets are all given a number before they are sent.

The computer uses these numbers to put the information back together in the right order.

Then, the web browser displays the webpage to you.

This process happens every time you request new information on the internet. What do you think takes longer?

The time it takes for the webpage to be sent

The time it takes to type in a webpage's URL

Imagine you go to a friend’s house after school. Your grown-up might ask your friend’s grown-up to send a quick message to say, “They got here safely!”

The internet works in a similar way.

When information travels across the internet, it is broken into tiny pieces called data packets. Each packet sends a little message back to say, “I arrived safely!”

If one of the packets doesn’t send a message back, the computer will send it again to make sure nothing is missing.

All of this is part of how the internet works, using something called TCP/IP, which helps make sure everything arrives safely and in the right order.