How Many Types of Internet Do We Have? (Spoiler: ‘Wi-Fi’ doesn't count)

During my SIWES (a college program designed to enable students to gain industry experience), while working as a help desk support personnel at an Indian firm in Lagos, my boss—Mr. Ramakrishna, the head of IT—called me from the server room to his desk. He had a fellow Indian guest seated beside him and he posed a question: “How many types of internet do we have?” His eyebrows shifted with the highs and lows of his thick Indian intonation, his eyes sharp and piercing as if he already held an expectation. Within seconds, I realized this was a test—a knowledge trial for the local Nigerian intern. Was it to highlight his staff’s incompetence or to showcase the gap between local and Indian expertise? The tension was comparable to that in a Zee World Bollywood sitcom.

At the time, I was an aspiring Cisco Certified Network Associate. I had studied cable internet and DSL, but these were textbook concepts I’d never seen or applied practically. I didn’t even understand how the company connected to the internet (my work focused on office LAN and branch WAN connections). Back then, internet connectivity in Nigeria was largely confined to cybercafes. I stood there, silent and defeated, until he dismissed me. A self-satisfied smirk etched across his lips, his guest nodding in approval. I retreated to the chilly server room, eyes moist, humiliated—but the question never left my mind.

Over time, as I progressed with the Cisco certification and eventually started my professional career in telecommunications RAN (Radio Access Networks), I grew to understand communication technologies a lot better. At its core, it’s about how information travels from Node A to Node B. In this post, I aim to answer the question: “How many types of internet do we have?”

Analyzing the Information Highway

All digital information is in the form of bits, those digital 1s, and 0s that make up every meme, email, and “Hey, I’m outside” WhatsApp voice note. But here’s the catch: bits can’t swim oceans or cross cities on their own, they need a ride. Enter signals—the translators that turn bits into something tangible. Think of them as Uber drivers for your data:

• Electrical signals cruise through copper wires (like old-school DSL lines).
• Light signals zip through fiber optic cables at, well, light speed.
• Radio waves float through the air, powering Wi-Fi and mobile networks.

But every signal has a weakness: attenuation. Translation: the farther it travels, the weaker it gets. It’s like fuel in your car — a full tank from the filling station in Lagos, nearly empty by the time you hit Ilorin. Electrical signals fizzle out after a few kilometers. Radio waves get swallowed by rain or a stubborn concrete wall. Even light dims over a distance. So how do bits cross continents without dying mid-journey? We build a relay race of technologies, each suited for a specific stretch. This is why the internet’s tiered structure exists. You can’t send a WhatsApp message from New York to London on a single signal any more than you can drive from Lekki to Sokoto on one tank of fuel.

The internet isn’t some mystical cloud—it’s a highway system, just with more fiber and fewer potholes. Think of the internet like a cross-country road trip. You’ve got highways, regional roads, local streets, and finally, the driveway to your house. Each layer gets you closer to your destination. Here’s the breakdown, tier by tier, from the ocean floor to your living room.

1. First Mile: The Transcontinental Handshake

This is where it all begins. The First Mile is the internet’s VIP lounge—subsea fiber optic cables stretching between continents, carrying 99% of the world’s data. Imagine them as underwater superhighways, where light pulses zip through extremely thin glass threads. Providers include MainOne, WACS, etc.

They’re fast, reliable, and absurdly expensive to lay (we’re talking billionaire yacht money). Remember in March 2024, when a ship’s anchor (or maybe a bored Kraken?) damaged cables off West Africa? A major part of Nigeria’s internet flatlined for days. Banks froze. Offices panicked. And suddenly, everyone remembered how vital these hidden “highways” are.

For landlocked spots or remote islands, satellites step in like a backup dancer: not as smooth, but hey, they’ll do the job.

2. National Backbone: The Digital Spine

Once the internet hits a country’s shores, it funnels into the National Backbone—a web of fiber optic cables linking major cities and data hubs. This is the internet’s central nervous system. IXPs (Internet Exchange Points) act like bustling markets where networks trade data locally, so your WhatsApp message to your neighbor doesn’t detour through Paris. The government’s been hustling to expand this layer (shoutout to projects like Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2025), linking more cities within the country. Microwave links sometimes chip in, too, beaming signals between towers like a game of catch.

3. Middle Mile: The Bridge to Nowhere (or Everywhere)

This tier is the middle child of connectivity. It takes data from the backbone and hauls it to the edges of cities, towns, villages, and that one cybercafe that still uses Windows Vista. Fiber’s still the golden child here, but in rural areas, engineers get creative, using microwaves to bounce signals between hills and satellites hover like overpriced lifelines. It’s a patchwork of “good enough” solutions—because when your only alternative is no internet, even laggy YouTube starts looking like a miracle.

4. Last Mile: Where Hope meets your Wi-Fi password.

Ah, the Last Mile. This is where the internet’s rubber meets the road—or more accurately, where it’s bolted to a pole outside your house. It’s the most chaotic layer, a tech free-for-all:

• FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home) by ISPs like FiberOne or iPNX: The Rolls-Royce of connections, if you live in a neighborhood that’s on the ISP’s “nice list.”
• 4G/5G (MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9mobile): Perfect for streaming TikTok on the go—until you hit a dead zone.
• Fixed Wireless (Cyberspace, Swift Networks, Tizeti): Rooftop antennas pulling signals out of thin air, gets you ‘there’ just barely most times. Also includes home broadband (router) solutions from mobile carriers (MTN et al.)
• Satellite (Starlink et al.): The “I live in a village, please help” option. Fast-ish, but with latency that’ll put online gamers on their toes. In Nigeria though, it has become the go-to home broadband option in cities (for those who can afford it) due to the unreliability of 4G/5G & FWA or the unavailability of FTTH.
• DSL/Cable: The “we’re using rotary phone line for this?” special. Slow, cranky, but still kicking.
• TV White Space/Balloons/Drones: The mad scientists’ club. Experimental, scrappy, and occasionally brilliant.

So, back to Mr. Ramakrishna’s question: “How many types of internet do we have?” Turns out, it’s less about counting technologies and more about how many ways we can jury-rig a connection to your doorstep. The Last Mile (your internet connectivity solution) isn’t a single solution—in my opinion, it’s whatever gets the job done. Even if that means duct-taping a Raspberry Pi to a tree outside your house.

Relating the internet to one of my favorite old-school songs by Phil Collins, communication across borders is like computers singing - I'll find a way to your heart...across continents, fighting attenuation, latency, and the occasional anchor-happy ship. Not caring if they’re riding light through fiber, bouncing off satellites, or squeezing through radio static—bleeding through cables and blazing past routers, desperate to crash into a network adapter like a chorus finally hitting its crescendo. And when they do? The screen flickers. The modem sighs. Somewhere, a server whispers -

"...I will keep a place in my heart, You will see it shining through, So find a way to my heart, And I will, I will follow you..."