Understanding the Physical Internet 🌐

Introduction to the physical internet.
The physical internet is fun. It’s all around us—​the wires and tubes and tunnels and cables and antenna that provide a physical link between billions of computers worldwide. While wireless connections have proliferated at the network edge, the core is still a wired system composed of computers that are touching each other. The physical internet also draws on and harnesses many previous technologies, frequently running over cables designed to carry other kinds of signals. Data follows in the footsteps of earlier technologies as it moves between us. So even as the internet defines its own reality—​cyberspace—​that space still maps down directly to physical space.

Credits: Talking: Geoffrey Challen (Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo). Producing: Greg Bunyea (Undergraduate, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo).

Part of the https://www.internet-class.org online internet course. A blue Systems Research Group (https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu) production.