TSIGARIDAS PANAGIOTIS wrote:
I found this definition in the INTEROP Book of Carl Malamud.
The Internet (note the uppercase "I') is a network infrastructure that
supports reasearch, engineering, education, and commercial services.
The word internet (with a lowercase "i") refers to any interconnected
set of substrates (provided, of course, they are running the
internetwork protocol IP)
internet is just a truncation of internetwork, but it has come to mean
'runs IP' (and a few others, e.g., ICMP).
Internet = usually defined as a transitive closure, as in
'speaks IP and is connected to another site already on the Internet'
where the base-case is usually defined as the NSF-funded backbone
pre-1988
There are certainly internets that support the services above, but are
not connected to the "Cap-I Internet".
Joe