Another major use of the Internet is to serve as a backbone for a smaller network. Users can share files, send email, communicate over these Intranets. Add a router, dedicated line and a modest server to handle aliases and firewalls, and the LAN is connected to other LANs across the world. Given that companies already possessed networks, connecting them to a larger network was relatively cheap. In a sense, this is the base function of the Internet, connecting clients over large areas at a low cost.
Private people have many of the same reasons for using the Internet as larger firms.
People can access services conveniently from their home computers. Around the same time LANs were being hooked up to the Internet, home computers were being fitted with modems. People then used their existing phone lines to connect their computers together. On the periphery of the Internet, but steadily integrating itself, was a community of e-businesses. Before IBM coined the term, e-businesses existed, but their success was limited because the cost to reach people was relatively high.