How does the internet work?

Did you ever wondered how all this magic happens behind the scenes?

When we say the internet, it is so interesting that see what people think about it, because I see that some people are thinking that it works with clouds -real ones-, some of them think that it works with satellites -kinda true-. But in reality, it is nothing more than we are connecting computers together with the cables on the ground.

So I said we are connecting the computers together, yeah that is true but you are not here to learn just these kinda basic perspectives, so let me introduce you to a concept called Router.
What is the router?
According to Wikipedia,

A router[a] is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. Routers perform the traffic-directing functions on the Internet. Data sent through the internet, such as a web page or email, is in the form of data packets. A packet is typically forwarded from one router to another router through the networks that constitute an internetwork (e.g. the Internet) until it reaches its destination node.[2]

So actually it explains very clearly. The router is the thing that forwards our packets (like your e-mails) to the final destination. And our packet stops at so many locations throughout its journey.
Let me tell you about our packet's journey over the internet and youll see what is happening.

So Mike wanted to send a message to his friend over the internet. Mike is connected to his home internet. So this message (lets call it the packet after now) goes to the modem and actually modem is a collective of so many parts of the device like the router. So the packet goes to the modem and actually goes to the router.

Until now everything happened in Mikes house. So what is going to happen next to the packet? It goes over the internet (which actually means so many other routers) and to his friend's house router and then to his friend's phone.

Actually, it is that simple but lets learn some more advanced topics to understand deeply.

You can connect your device to the router with a couple of technics and as you can guess one of them is WI-FI which is you don't need a cable to connect YOUR OWN ROUTER. Or you can use a cable to connect your device to your own router after that just works fine like MIKEs story.
In Mikes story, Mike connected his phone to his friend's phone, right? What about Mike wanting the connect his own devices to each other using his home's modem. Then we use a device called Switch. And as I said our modem contains so many other networking devices in it, so as you guessed there is also a switch in it. Actually, you can easily see the switch in it, just look at the ports called LAN1, LAN2, and LAN3, these are the ports that the switch device uses and you can connect your devices using these ports. Every device should connect to one of the ports.

Alright, these are understood but what is this LAN means actually, right? It is an acronym that stands for Local Area Network so let's check what Wikipedia says about this concept:

A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building

So it is basically a small internet in your area. Do you remember what I said about the internet we are connecting computers together with the cables on the ground.. So if you connect devices in LOCAL areas it is called a Local Area Network (LAN) and if you connect devices in wide areas or even globally like the internet that we use on daily basis it is called a Wide Area Network (WAN).
Actually, the thing we are talking about is NETWORK and there are two types of network: LAN and WAN. And eventually, the internet is a WAN.

Alright alright, we learned so many topics like Router, Switch, LAN, and WAN. There is actually one more topic that I want to share with you, for discovering that topic let's get back to Mikes story.

So Mike was sending his packet to his friend and we said: the packet goes over the internet (which actually means so many other routers). Did you ever wonder whose routers those that carrying our packets to our friend?
These are called ISPs (Internet Service Provider) the people whom you are paying money for access to the internet, right? But do you think one router can be enough for this mission? No, there are hundreds of thousands of routers that are connected to each other over the world, and every one of them passes our packet to each other until our packet gets where it is the final destination that we call node. It is just like a mail service but at the speed of light and it goes over the oceans on the ground!

CONGRATS! Now you have a valid fundamental about what internet is.

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