Top 21 Incredibly Interesting Internet Facts

1)The Internet was invented over 40 years ago, in a beer garden! Who says the best ideas don’t come over a drink!
2)Right now 3.6 billion people are using the Internet – that’s over half the world’s population connected to the world wide web just like you are.
3)It may seem like only yesterday we were all dialling in for our Internet connection, but wireless internet was actually founded in September 1990! Wi-Fi is only a few years away from its 30th birthday!
4)With a whopping 71% of mobile communications flowing over wireless Internet, Wi-Fi is now the biggest transmitter of communications around the world.
5)Previous names for wireless Internet were WaveLAN, FlankSpeed, DragonFly, WECA and IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence, before the more consumer friendly name of Wi-Fi was adopted.
6)Interbrand invented the term “Wi-Fi” as a play on words of the term “Hi-Fi” or “High Fidelity”. However, Wi-Fi doesn’t actually stand for anything.
7)What added to the confusion was the Wi-Fi Alliance’s use of a nonsense advertising slogan, “The Standard for Wireless Fidelity,” which lead many people to think that Wi-Fi was an abbreviation of “Wireless Fidelity”.
8)With the global average Internet speed sitting at 5.6Mbps, South Korea is storming ahead as the fastest country in the world, with an average Internet speed of 26.7Mbps!
Wireless Internet signals generally emit from your router in a doughnut shape. Tasty.
9)Ethernet – the most commonly used wired Internet – was invented almost half a century ago in the early 1970’s, by Bob Metcalfe.
10)In the early days of computer networking, coaxial cables were used, the same type of cabling that is commonly used for cable or satellite TV today.
11)You may have only heard it recently, but the term Internet of Things (IoT) has actually been around for almost 20 years! It was first coined in 1999 by Kevin Ashton, a
12)British visionary and engineer
In 2016 there was approximately 7 billion people living on the planet, and over 23 billion devices connected to the Internet – that’s an average of 3 devices per person.
13)By 2020 it is estimated there will be over 50 billion Internet-connected devices worldwide being used by 7.8 billion people – over doubling the amount of average devices per person!
14)In 2016 over 15 billion Internet-connected devices were shipped across the globe! That’s a lot of tech!
15)Some of the strangest devices that connect to the Internet now include Walking Sticks, Umbrellas, Shirts, Water Bottles, Tails (for festival goers) and Cutlery. We’ve left the particularly odd items off this list!
16)90% of consumers are being driven towards the connected smart home trend by better security for their homes and families.
17)There are currently around 150 million smart homes worldwide – it won’t be long before Internet-connected homes are the norm.
18)The average person now spends almost 10 hours a day online – we spend more time on the Internet that we do sleeping!
19)5 billion Google searches are performed on the Internet each day! What are all these people searching for?!
20)China leads the way with the most Internet usage – over 650 million users, making up a 5th of the total number of people online.
21)Google is ranked as the most popular website worldwide, with Youtube coming in second and Facebook third.
It’s amazing how little we know about something we use for more than 10 hours a day! – We’re just scraping the surface when it comes to incredible facts about the Internet, but now you can go and dazzle your friends with your new-found knowledge. Next time you are sat with a beer we expect you to show off that the Internet was invented in a beer garden. Next time you Google something you can think about your search joining the 3.5 billion other searches being performed that day. The Internet is a vast place – watch this space for more Internet facts from Fing in the future.