Where does internet speed and bandwidth come from?

Not got an in depth understanding myself and have often wondered, but I would imagine young Joe would need a boat-load of cash.

I `dont think there is "an internet" as one device/place/entity.

I think "the internet" is made up of multiple servers (google, yahoo etc) and multiple connections whether that be fiber, or cable.

I think Joe`s main cost would be his connection.

you can go and buy/rent/lease a leased line form a provider of such items for a cost, as the size of the pipe goes up, so does the cost.

For instance I one requested a quote for a 100Mb/100Mb leased connection to my home and after an initial £9000 installation fee, I think the monthly premium was £7000 per month for the connection, now of course this was `un-capped` and had 99.9% `uptime` but really 7 grand PER MONTH....

I`m probably waaaayyy off on the intricacies of "the internet", but those figure were actual quoted figures I got when I asked for my home address.
 
The same thing that prevents Joe's neighbor from running a network, power, and phone cable across the lawn and into Joe's house and hooking up to Joe's utilities. Joe won't let him. Unless he was willing to pay...
 
Mangudai said:
How is it generated? What prevents joe schmo from creating broadband internet access for himself?
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Fast switches and a conduit to transmit signals along that can cope with the speed and is convenient for its placement and use.
Many many people over a long time developed these and the standards required to allow them to operate effectively.

Are you talking about how to go about contracting the right people to get better speed broadband in your area?
 
Mangudai said:
How is it generated? What prevents joe schmo from creating broadband internet access for himself?
Click to expand...

Massive network elements with thousands of card/ports and fiber to connect them. Level3 is the largest network backbone in North America. Companies like Comcast and Century link buy small slivers of bandwidth from the their network.
 
Al Gore has thousands of underground dwarves that mine, process, and deliver it via tubes in dwarf-size dump trunks from his basement.
 
/usr/home said:
Al Gore has thousands of underground dwarves that mine, process, and deliver it via tubes in dwarf-size dump trunks from his basement.
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In all fairness, the Internet tubes were first pointed out by Sen. Ted Stevens (God's gift to Alaska).

In all fairness^2 the Internet tube comment wasn't actually all that off, especially when considering that it came from someone who was 80+ years old.

The Internet is actually a series of tubes (not in series, but in parallel), it's not a big truck, you can't just dump stuff on it!

No idea why the Internet was giving Ted so much grief over that. It was probably because he was in favor of limiting net-neutrality. To explain the Internet to other 80+ year olds the series of tubes analogy works well.
 
How is it generated?
Click to expand...
I would describe the internet as a semi-heirachical network of networks.

To provide access to the internet an ISP needs to establish routes to and from all the other networks that form the internet. Obviously interconnecting directly with every single network is impractical. So some networks will need to be accessed via other networks.

Typically a network operator establishes two main types of connection to other networks (there are also various in-between variants which are sometimes used) . Transit connections provide routes to the whole internet but the provider providing transit will charge for them. Peering connections provide access to a company and their customers and are usually free of charge from the peer but there may be strings attatched such as minimum traffic levels or ratio rules and there WILL be costs involved in actually establishing the link (either though a private connection or through a shared peering fabric) which have to be shared between the peers.

There is a small cartel of providers known as the "tier 1" providers. They do not buy transit from anyone but they all peer with each other and hence (under normal conditions*) provide access to the whole internet. There are also some wannabe tier 1 providers who do not buy transit from anyone but are believed to rely on paid peering.

What prevents joe schmo from creating broadband internet access for himself?
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Money mainly. First you have to establish a connection to a datacenter in a major city. That means either renting lines off an existing telco or laying your own. Once you get there you have to pay to set up onward connectivity. That means either buying transit from a single provider and letting them sort it out or buying a very expensive router and space to host it so you can use a mix of peering and transit.

In general up to somewhere around a few gigabit per second (at 95th percentile) it's cheaper to buy transit from a single provider. Above that establishing your own peering relationships can start to make sense. As your traffic goes up further it can start to make sense to extend your network to other cities and peer there too.

All of this is far too expensive for a single normal person. It can be possible for local cooperatives to do it though.

Regulatory hurdles can be an issue in some areas, it can be difficult for anyone other than the incumbent telco to get permission to run communications cables.

* BTW if you are single homed and care about reliable connectivity you want to avoid using a teir 1 or wannabe teir 1 provider as it leaves you oe peering dispute away from losing connectivity to parts of the internet.
 
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