Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
and connections, for maintaining that equipment, and for upgrad
ing components to keep up with new demands of users. Although
the Internet is more of a confederation than a single entity, the vari
ous components all incur costs that must be offset by income.
When the DoD or NSF maintained much of the Internet back
bone, many of the basic costs for national connectivity were met by
the United States government. Any academic, scientific, and re
search organizations that participated in the Internet needed to
cover their own costs of connecting with the backbone, plus some
of the operation of the backbone itself. The Internet, however, was
not expected to earn a profit, and many basic costs were subsidized
by the government.
With the privatization of the Internet, economies changed in
substantial ways. The government still maintains a role in the
Internet, but the national and regional providers now operate as
businesses and must earn a profit on their investments. The national
ISP America Online, for example, works continuously to maintain
uptodate service and charges its subscribers a monthly fee to offset
its expenses and make a profit. Today, the role of government con
tinues to diminish as commercial interests become increasingly im
portant. Serious revenue is required to offset all of the expenses that
the Internet incurs, and these days such costs must be covered by
users—companies, organizations, and individuals.
In considering the costs of the Internet, many expenses have to
do with basic infrastructure: servers, routers, communication lines,
and the like. When this equipment is running smoothly, electrical
signals move from place to place, and processing continues in a way
that is largely independent of usage. Of course, demands for han
dling a large volume of message traffic may require more equipment
than what is needed for a small volume. Generally, however, once
the infrastructure is in place to accommodate a basic level of activ
ity, the costs of running this equipment do not vary much whether
