How ASU Connects to the Internet

Introduction

History

How the Net Works

Connection at Home

The Future

Test Your Understanding

A direct connection is usually the faster method of connecting to the Internet because all of the College's buildings are connected together by a Fiber Optic Backbone. This backbone is the equivalent of a very fast super highway for the campus' data or the electronic nerve system for the campus. The backbone connects several Local Area Networks (LAN) together to form a single Wide Area Network (WAN). The WAN's backbone can transfer data around campus at a rate of 100 million bits per second.

Each building on campus has its own LAN backbone that connects up to the WAN backbone. A computer in the Computing Commons or computer Lab connect to the building's LAN by using an ethernet card, a device which uses allows the computer to "talk" to the network. The ethernet card connects to the LAN by using a 10 base T Ethernet data line.

The 10 in 10 base T stands for the ability to transfer data at 10 million bites per second and the T stands for Twisted pair wires that are similar to a standard phone cord. The computers in the labs are connected to the LAN by a "hub" or "switch", and these devices connect to the building's backbone which connects to the College's backbone by a router.

Whenever somebody wants to send a message out on the Internet, the message travels from the building's data backbone to the building's router. The router decides where to send the message from here.

The router will send the message to one of three locations:

    1) back to the building's network,
    2) to another router on the College's backbone or
    3) to the router that sends the message to the Internet.

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Introduction | History | How | Home | The Future