This again is a difficult question. The individual networks and connections are owned by many individual companies and organisations, and each makes the chunks it owns available to be used to a greater or lesser extent creating the Internet as a whole. So, when you connect to your ISP from home, you are effectively leasing a connection to their part of the network. They in turn will lease connections to ISPs and network providers 'upstream', and so on. The core Irish network providers own and maintain a backbone of connections criss-crossing the country. Other providers run connections to Europe and the United States, and so on.

So when you send an email from your computer in Cork to your Aunt in Peru or your best friend travelling the world and connecting in a cybercafe in Touva, the message is travelling via many networks owned by many people, companies and government bodies. What's remarkable is that you're not charged by each company en route, since they all cooperate and allow (almost) all traffic to pass through. Payment is made through the chain of ISPs by each ISP paying for its right to connect higher up the chain, and agreeing to pass traffic through its own network. It's a model that works well, though it is becoming more complex as the commercial value of connectivity increases.

The multiple ownership of the Internet also has implications for the security of your messages, as your text will pass through many networks and may be readable by any of them (unless you take steps to safeguard it); see Chapter 6, Safe and Secure Surfing.