Internet

I wish I could talk to my friend who lives on another planet, sure, the internet exists but it's expensive if you're a private person.

— A shopkeeper in Onnesso

The internet is a network for sending information between individual devices. When people mention the internet, they are usually talking about the Universal network. People typically use the word "network" when they are talking about the networks available on each individual planet.
Individual private people can have access to the universal internet and the web part of it if they can afford it, but it's used mainly by companies and governments to communicate across the universe. There is also only a small percentage of private people that are aware of the Universal internet. Most ordinary people believe that the networks they have on their own planet is the same on other planets, even though they have never spoken to a person from another planet on their network who doesn't live on their planet. It's just not something they have reflected upon until they are told that it's not the same.

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History

Networks have existed on all planets across the universe for a very long time. The first network existed on Areu before the inhabitants of that planet disappeared, and the other planets created them separately by themselves hundreds of years before any of them were aware that there were other life forms out in space.
The current universal internet web was created in the year 698 on The Station by a scientist named Urellen Justice, originally from the planet of Bog. He wanted the governments to be able to communicate across planets. Which they now can. The connection isn't great, but it's better than nothing.
There are some who want everyone to be able to communicate through the universal internet, but many more others who do not want that to be a possibility...