Internet Signal Explained
This document outlines the fundamentals of how the physical signals are transferred to and from computers.
What is the Internet?
The internet is a machine communication network that is relied on by billions of people on earth to deliver information through the transfer of electric signals.
How do signals work?
A device sends on and off signals through its appropriate medium (radio, electrical, light) in waves. Each cycle in a wave contains an on and off state. The cycles of this wave can range in time and amplitude. The time that a wave cycle takes to complete is also called a wavelength.
How do Computers send signals?
A computer is a series of circuits that are built to create and process electrical signals into instructions. These instructions are in the form of "binary" signals, representing the on and off state of the cycles of a wave of electricity.
Internet waves are encoded with some information, are emitted by electronic devices, and transferred over a network. A network is a series of physical wires and other wireless computing devices that are able to interpret the signal and re-send the encoded binary signal to the next logical system in the transaction. Eventually, it is able to find its way to the receiver specified in the encoded binary message and processed appropriately.