What is "internetworking"

vb. (present participle of internetwork English)

Internetworking is the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks through the use of gateways that provide a common method of routing information packets between the networks. The resulting system of interconnected networks are called an internetwork, or simply an internet. Internetworking is a combination of the words inter ("between") and networking; not internet-working or international-network.

The most notable example of internetworking is the Internet, a network of networks based on many underlying hardware technologies, but unified by an internetworking protocol standard, the Internet Protocol Suite, often also referred to as TCP/IP.

The smallest amount of effort to create an internet (an internetwork, not the Internet), is to have two LANs of computers connected to each other via a router. Simply using either a switch or a hub to connect two local area networks together doesn't imply internetworking; it just expands the original LAN.