Is the internet everlasting?

[Deleted]

I recently had a discussion with my GF (yeah i know, bad idea). She was watching The Walking Dead, and i asked, "Why don't they have internet?"
Did the providers go "Oh we better disconnect everyone not paying" while being eaten alive? Which got me thinking: Where does the internet come from and what is it? I mean, can it be shut down? It's a signal right? So how do providers get that signal and distribute it to households? And if they pay for masses of internet to distribute, what is the source? Assuming internet runs trough servers, is the internet everlasting as long as there is a server up? And if so, in a zombie apocalyps, can we still use internet? I know, deep stuff right? Anyone got the answers?

[Symphonic]

If the internet providers who control the satellite signals, for example, go out of business, nobody will be able to retrieve that signal? Maybe I'm wrong. I really have no idea.

[Deleted]

The Internet is the collective group of every network in the world that is some way connected to a Tier 1 data centre. The Internet operates off the TCP/IP protocol suite which performs agreements, routing, formatting etc... The only real way to shutdown the Internet is to shut down all of the Tier 1 data centres. All ISPs do is let you use their line to the data centres.

[Droes]

No devices connected to a network means no internet, no internet means no internet, every website is stored somewhere on a server.

Either there will be a better alternative invention, it will be a forced shutdown, or humanity goes extinct. I'm pretty sure the internet isn't everlasting.

If the internet providers who control the satellite signals, for example, go out of business, nobody will be able to retrieve that signal? Maybe I'm wrong. I really have no idea.

Internet has very little to do with satellites.

[mmokri]

Internet is like international telephone line.

[Vizardlorde]

I think it's pipes full of wire for the most part(well not the internet but the infrastructure) but there are some satellite services which are data capped. What an ISP does is grant you access to some of their wires and little box to undo the protection they apply on them to prevent people from jacking on to the wires and having access to the net w/o paying them. So onless the wires are damaged there should be no reason why internet would go down. but in a zombie apocalypse everything is fked up.

[WillFeral]

Wizardry and sorcery,don't question it.

[mmokri]

Popular internet description for author.

Internet is like international telephone line.

And hardware messages each other through this telephone line.

[Ghâzh]

I might not have the most deepest understanding of the matter but correct me if I'm wrong. The internet is deeply tied in to electricity? I mean even if all the wires and servers and all the rest of the hardware that connects everything together survived undamaged you'd still need power for the stuff to work and connect. This should answer your question why there's no internet in the walking dead, no electricity - no internet. Even if you connected a battery powered laptop to the network there wouldn't be electricity to make it go trough anywhere. Plus if the servers containing the website data etc are down you'd only be able to connect to other battery ran laptops anyway?

[Yunru]

The only way to realy stop internet is to cause a huge EMP blast all over the earth. So it fries the data storage centers.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/w...rvers-1000.jpg

[Vizardlorde]

The only way to realy stop internet is to cause a huge EMP blast all over the earth. So it fries the data storage centers.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/w...rvers-1000.jpg

So basically WW3 with nukes flying all over the place? (I know there are other things that cause EMP but nothing in the scale required to shut down the web)

[Frozenbeef]

Well if you play dead island you see that zombies like to congregate in server rooms for some reason, so i doubt the isp servers would be functional anymore >.<

[Yunru]

So basically WW3 with nukes flying all over the place? (I know there are other things that cause EMP but nothing in the scale required to shit down the web)

Huge solar flare could do that too. Its electromagnetic-radiation.

[Annoying]

That's the core of the internet. It's a bunch of fiber optic lines interconnecting major connection points. Now, you have nameservers and such that change www.<insert name>.<TLD> to an IP address, but without those, you could still connect directly to any IP address that you still had some route to reach.

[ringpriest]

So basically WW3 with nukes flying all over the place? (I know there are other things that cause EMP but nothing in the scale required to shit down the web)

Two Words: Carrington Event.

On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, those in the northern hemisphere even as far south as the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People who happened to be awake in the northeastern US could read a newspaper by the aurora's light. The aurora was visible as far from the poles as Cuba and Hawaii.

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.

[bals]

it requires electricity so it might work for awhile afterwards but it'll eventually stop working.
all the infrastructure will still be there though so it could be started up again in theory.

[Kraenen]

the internet is not a big truck. it's a series of tubes.

[Vizardlorde]

Two Words: Carrington Event.

Wow that's really interesting, I had never heard about it probably because it happened so long ago and world history focuses mostly on political crap after the 1600s

[Garnier Fructis]

The internet is a series of tubes, so it will last as long as the material used to make the tubes.

[vhinz316]

Internet will definitely last as long as there are subscribers/users.