Since the revolutionary steps of the Internet took place upon the world which we come to know as the world of globalization and under various other terms, it has been dominating silently and quite actively. Millions, if not billions, of businesses starting from the multi-corporate giants to small retail businesses actively rely on the Internet to expand their horizon of influence and marketing activity. Every human intrinsically relies or takes part in this vast world of web. This world of web is called the World Wide Web or WWW which we have seen at least once in our life. This is the medium through which one get into the world of web.
The way your computer gets connected to the Internet
One of the questions many active users of the World Wide Web are asking is how computer understands all of the Internet traffic that is coming directly into your home, office or home-office in general. I mean, we know that we simply connect our devices to the Internet and with a click of a button we are in the virtual world. Yet, it is still not obvious how a computer understands this massive signal coming to you or the signal that you send outward, which is to say to this world of web. Whether you are a geek or not, let’s jump right in and be one for a moment to learn the entire process and stand out from the ones that does not have a clue of all of the beauty going on behind the scene!
Generally, when an Internet service is purchased from ISP ( Internet Service Provider), a phone company or from some pimp in the neighbourhood, you see the line being connected to a modem which then reaches your computer. This is done in such a way as to convert an analogue signal to a digital signal form which computers are able of understanding. Yes, the signal that comes from the outside is a pure analogue form which your computers does not understand so some conversion or interpretation has to be done in order to make the connection possible.
The next thing in the process is your pc receiving the signal in a digital form which can be achieved in several ways. It can be done through a direct ethernet cabling or via a Wi-Fi adapter that resides plugged-in into one of the usb ports of your computer happily blinking for feeding it with Wi-Fi signals.
An Internet card
This is not everything. Your computer receives the Internet signal through a network card, so this is one more element required for making the connection possible. The sole purpose of such a card is to receive and distribute the data inside or outside of your computer in a safe manner. This card is technically called a NIC or Network Interface Card.
You card imagine this card residing in the motherboard of your machine being an agent between you and the out door to the world of web. When the signal is received, NIC breaks it into distinct chunks of data which is called frames. There are other popular terms for the chunks of data . thus, you can come across such a name as packets instead of frames. This should not be confused and what packets are the data that is received in frames.
Identifiers of Internet cards
Typically, every NIC has a unique identifier to make it possible to distinguish particular users of the Internet from the rest of the people communicating through the web. Such an identifier is what called a Mac address. This is a built-in identifier for every NICs. When the data that you looked for has arrived it is broken down into chunks of data. These chunks are received by corresponding points of the NIC. One is responsible for dealing with the recipient’s Mac, another frame is to deal with sender’s Mac. There is also one more frame that deals only with the data while an extra frame is responsible for checking the condition of data. Indeed, this frame is checking whether the data has arrived in a good or bad condition. This portion of NIC frame is called CRC or Cyclic Redundancy Check.
This is how essentially a computer communicates in and out of your home with the world of web.