Internetworking

Internetworking is the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks through the use of gateways that provide a common method of routing information packets between the networks. The resulting system of interconnected networks are called an internetwork, or simply an internet. Internetworking is a combination of the words inter ("between") and networking; not internet-working or international-network.

The most notable example of internetworking is the Internet, a network of networks based on many underlying hardware technologies, but unified by an internetworking standard, the , often also referred to as TCP/IP.

The smallest amount of effort to create an internet (an internetwork, not the Internet), is to have two LANs of computers connected to each other via a router. Simply using either a switch or a hub to connect two local area networks together doesn't imply internetworking; it just expands the original LAN.

Internetworking started as a way to connect disparate types of networking technology, but it became widespread through the developing need to connect two or more local area networks via some sort of wide area network. The original term for an internetwork was catenet.

The definition of an internetwork today includes the connection of other types of computer networks such as personal area networks. The network elements used to connect individual networks in the ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet, were originally called gateways, but the term has been deprecated in this context, because of possible confusion with functionally different devices. Today the interconnecting gateways are called routers.

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