Abstract
Electricity, telecommunication, integrated circuits, networking, and the Internet fostered a revolution by delivering distinctive services. The power of the net lies in restructuring the global economy to benefit consumers, businesses, society, and civilization. In general sense, electronic economy is considered to have three primary components--supporting infrastructure, electronic processes (how it is conducted), and electronic commerce transactions (buying and selling). This chapter deals with the introductory concepts of B2C EC and its related issues in the global context. It describes introduction to EC and evolution of one of the basic components of EC, that is, the Internet. Then this chapter sheds light on definition, proliferation, adoption, globalization, and management issues related to B2C EC. This chapter also explains the basic concepts of M-Commerce and E-Government (EG) as the related issues.
Top2.2. Evolution Of The Internet
We can get insight of the evolution of the Internet from different WWW websites. Summarizing this history, we can say that in 1957, the ex-Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik I. It expedited U.S. military to create the DARPA agency to regain the technological lead. Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) funded the research that led to the development of the ARPANET - Advanced Research Projects Agency. Some people in the IPTO considered the potential benefits of a countrywide communications network and launched the network architecture, and based it on the new idea of packet switching. The ARPANET was initiated first in October 1969, with communications between the University of California at Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute. ARPANET adopted the Network Control Program as the network protocol. From 1983, TCP/IP protocol was adopted instead of the previous one, which is still now used for networking. In 1990, the National Science Foundation took over management of what was then called the NSFNet and significantly expanded its periphery by connecting it to the CSNET in Universities throughout North America, and later to the EUnet throughout research facilities in Europe. Observing the extensive use and prospective future of the Internet, the U.S. Government prompted to take initiatives to privatize it starting in 1995. Before that, in 1992, WWW (World Wide Web) started its revolutionary inception in the world market. This is the precise evolution history of the Internet.