The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s, when exploration of a technology called "packet switching" was pursued by several innovative thinkers. This area of research got a major boost when the US Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) invested in the development of the ARPANET. This successful experiment in computer resource sharing led directly to the development of radio- and satellite-based systems and to their integration with the ARPANET into what we now call the Internet. Skipping over 40 years of development and inventions (including Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web), the Internet has become a global infrastructure for the support of commerce, social interaction, research and governmental services. An estimated 1.6 billion people use the Internet and probably twice that many may be advantaged indirectly by its services. In addition, there are over 4 billion mobiles in use today, of which an estimated 15 to 20 percent have access to Internet-based services. This trend appears to be continuing and highlights the increasing importance of improving the reliability and security of the Internet's infrastructure.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vinton-g-cerf/building-a-faster-more-se_b_293191.html
