1.  How big is the Internet?  When did it start?  How did it grow?

The Internet should arrive at about 50 million users on 5 million
different computers sometime in 1995.  Today these figures are an
estimation, the older figures listed below are more exact because
they were smaller and easier to deal with.  Today computers go on
and off the Internet every day, in the beginning changes were the
exception.

Several rules of thumb apply to the figures given below:

1.  At any given time, perhaps 1% of all computers are on the Internet.
    Thus there will probably be 500 million computers in 1995.  This is
    certainly likely to change when there are billions of computers.

2.  At any given time, perhaps 10 people have accounts on any node. . .
    thus with 5 million nodes in 1995 there should be 50 million users.
    This becomes more and more of an inflated estimate as more and more
    people have multiple accounts.  _I_ have NOT accounted for this, at
    least in my own personal estimates, and many of the figures I would
    present do NOT tell if they account for anything like this.


3.  The later figures are only estimates:

    For instance,    10/93    2,056,000

    Other listing:   11/93    1,977,210
    Broken down to   US       1,436,750
                     Europe     496,763
                     Japan       43,697

So please take all these with at least 1 grain of salt. . .  ;-)

People always ask when the Internet really took off, and by this
chart as well as by my personal experience, it was 1987-1988.

   Date       Hosts
   -----    ---------
   05/69            4
   10/69            5
   04/71           23
   06/74           62
   03/77          111
   08/81          213
   05/82          235
   08/83          562
   10/84        1,024
   10/85        1,961
   02/86        2,308
   11/86        5,089
   12/87       28,174
   07/88       33,000
   10/88       56,000
   01/89       80,000
   07/89      130,000
   10/89      159,000
   10/90      313,000
   01/91      376,000
   07/91      535,000
   10/91      617,000
   01/92      727,000
   04/92      890,000
   07/92      992,000
   10/92    1,136,000
   01/93    1,313,000
   04/93    1,486,000
   07/93    1,776,000
   10/93    2,056,000
   01/94    2,217,000
   1995     5,000,000 est


2.  Who owns the Internet?

The US Government started the Internet, and therefore could have
been said to own it.  However, we don't own the phone companies,
any more than we own the Internet. . .we own our phones, and our
computers, but we don't own the actual network.  As I understand
it, in the US the network now belongs to the phone companies.

3.  What do the Internet addresses mean?

There are two kinds of Internet address, one is a "name" and the
other is an Internet Protocol Number [IP#]:

In this case, this message will originate from vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
or 128.174.201.12

The sections are reversed in name and number [in the US where we
also drive on the other side of the road from some of you].

vmd and 12 are the name and number of the computer I am using.
cso and 201 are the name and number of the local subdomain
uiuc and 174 are the name and number of the U of Illinois at
     Urbana-Champaign
edu and 128 are the name and number of the educational network

Other networks endings are:

.com = commercial
.org = organizations
.gov = government
.net = network
.mil = military

You can now get a single permanent email address that will do
forwarding to you for your whole life for about $15 per year.
Just ask if you want details on this.