Even your Internet Service Provider (ISP) doesn't own the Internet (Net). Instead your ISP functions like a gate keeper. They let you in and then let you out.

However your ISP does not own the road you use to get there.

Your local phone company owns the lines you use to connect to the Net. Regional Bell & long distance carriers own the leased lines used to connect most of the Internet network, now including DSL and satellite microwaves, or wireless.

All these phone lines, DSL cable & wireless microwaves are tied into many high speed links, each called a backbone.

Major communication companies like Sprint, Qwest, ATT, etc. own or rent the backbone links.

Several major companies are involved in this backbone business, one of them being AOL who owned Advanced Network Services who operated over 12,000 miles of fiber-optic pathways.

How does data travel through these complicated networks? How a packet moves through network - video.

The Net is simply too big to be owned by anyone or any conglomerate.

If you use the Net you are partial owner.

Who runs the Internet?

Just as several major companies control the backbone of the Internet, several organizations share Internet administration responsibilities.

1) ISOC - The Internet Society

Located in Reston, Va is a non-profit, non-government organization with more than 7000 individual members from 150 countries who all together make up more than 100 ISOC member organizations. These ISOC organizations attempt to address the issues of how to generate progress and growth for the Internet.
http://www.isoc.org/

2) IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force

A large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.
http://www.ietf.org/

3) ICANN - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

An internationally organized, non-profit corporation, ICANN is responsible for coordinating the management of the technical elements of the DNS. The Domain Name System (DNS) helps users find their way around the Internet.
http://www.icann.org/

4) IAB - Internet Architecture Board

Responsible for setting & overseeing tech standards enabling world wide users to access & use the Internet.
http://www.iab.org/

5) CORE - Council of Registrars

International not-for-profit association of Domain Name Registrars constituted under Swiss Law. CORE's members are professional registrars who handle domain name registration on behalf of customers. Work closely with InterNic.
http://www.corenic.org/

6) InterNic

Collaboration between AT&T and Network Solutions (NSI) supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that oversees the Domain Name Registrars (CORE).
http://www.internic.net/
 

Who Pays for the Internet?

The National Science Foundation (NSF) pays a good portion, another good portion comes from us as Internet users paying our ISP's who then pay their inter-network providers for connection to their servers. The rest of the money comes from advertisers. Just like TV, advertising fees paid across the Internet greatly underwrite many of the costs we would have to pay otherwise.

http://www.montesanoenterprises.com/monte.htm is my web page address, called a URL or "earl" - short for uniform resource locator recognized worldwide by all web browsers as a web document.

The http:// means hypertext transfer protocol and identifies a document as a website, www indicates this is the web managing portion of a computer where a domain is parked, or stored on server, although not necessary to use anymore as technology has advanced. The .com indicates the top level domain of my website,  /monte.htm or /monte.html indicates sublevel web page.

We as web users cannot read hypertext markup language, that is why we use web browsers. Web Browsers read html & convert code accordingly, presenting us the web document as html coding tells it too. Since many different web browsers are used worldwide a good html coder, or webmaster, must code for all browsers in order to read the web document as meant to be viewed, thus W3C Validation Standard comes into effect. A W3C Validated web page will be read by all web browsers worldwide as close to correct coding view as possible, meaning the html coding of page is read the same way (or close enough to pass) by all browsers worldwide, using a standard practice of html transitional coding.

To see the coding of any web page use View > Source on your browser toolbar.

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