What is the Internet? To put it very simply, the Internet is a very large collection of telecommunications lines. In the 1980's, the Department of Defense and AT&T was charged by Congress to develop a Communications System that was not centralized in one location, Therefore it could not be destroyed easily. Initially, the Internet was used exclusively by the Federal Government. In the late 1980's, Congress passed laws that opened up the Internet to Private and Commercial Use with several stipulations. The two major stipulations was that Internet Protocol address assignments would be controlled by the federal government and by fee based assignments. The second would be that the TLD's or Top Level Domains ie: .com, .net, and .org, be controlled by a non-profit organization much like the US Postal Service.

What does this mean to You? The major thing to remember about the internet is there isn't one central location. When you connect to YouBetNet, we are providing you with access to the Internet. We do not host the Internet, the Internet is too large to be hosted by any one company or individual. YouBetNet purchases Internet ACCESS from Sprint, WorldCom, and Qwest and intern, resells it to our customers. Sprint, WorldCom, and Qwest connect there telecommunications lines with other Providers and themselves and that intern forms backbones of the internet, but they themselves do not host it.

Where do websites fit into this? Websites are the destination of where you are browsing to, much like our nation's highway system. The highway gets you there like the backbone of the internet, but your interested in the destination. Websites are the malls, gas stations, and clubs of the internet. The biggest trouble people have when browsing the internet is finding the destination. For more Information on finding websites, go to our website search section.

Where does Email fit into this? Email or Electronic Mail, is another form of communicating with other people. Every YouBetNet Customer gets a YouBetNet Email account when they sign up.