It also hosts the annual International Networking Conference, publishes the Internet Society News magazine, and serves as a global mechanism for development, administration, and standards making for internetworking. Because of the overhead of trying to charge for connectionless traffic so greatly exceeds the transmission cost, and because all the participating network owners have placed paramount value on the ultimate benefits of unfettered use, the Internet community has had a strong tradition of no accounting and no settlements related to traffic. This practice will probably evolve over time to equitably accommodate increasing large commercial network implementations and users. If you want just personal access, you find someone that will provide you a user access account. Increasingly, commercial public access is being offered throughout the world from a wide variety of public and private providers.
Internet technology is inherently very low cost and robust.
Because Internet is a network of networks, it relies upon relatively little in addition to the information systems that already exist. This has led to Internet capabilities being implemented everywhere - from the most resource poor developing countries and remote locations to major world information centers. A major problem often faced in many countries is obtaining access to cost-based leased lines that constitute the ideal internet linking medium. One of the best known current initiatives is the Gore Bill, which has several hundred million dollars in the U.S.A. for the National Research and Educational Network. A second bill has recently been developed that seeks to fund widespread connectivity.