A common academic use of e-mail involves joint authorship of papers by writers who reside in different cities. Authors can exchange documents, modify and manipulate the text using word processors, and then transmit the altered transcripts back. Without e-mail, joint authorship of an article or book entails long delays between exchanges. With it, authors can trade updated drafts daily. Such BBSs allow people with common interests to communicate and debate without the time delays of traditional mail or the costs of travel.
Internet is a collection of individual networks, all linked.
Anyone using any one of the member networks can communicate with people on any other member network. Thousands of colleges, universities, government agencies, and commercial and non-profit concerns are attached to Internet and can therefore intercommunicate. Internet also has links to networks in Canada, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Japan, and will soon connect various Eastern European and Asiatic countries. Internet in Detail Organizations can join the Internet community by paying a fixed, annual fee for connection and use. Charges are not based on traffic usages so individual users, faculty members for example, need not worry about funding.