The actual physical network of wires, cables and satellite that connects computers and resources throughout the world is the _______________

It helps to separate the physical infrastructure of global networking from the services built on top of it. The question is asking specifically about the underlying physical hardware, not about how people use it.

The internet is the actual worldwide network of interconnected wires, fibre-optic cables, routers, and satellite links that physically carry data between computers across the globe. It is the hardware backbone that allows any connected device to exchange data with any other connected device, anywhere in the world.

The web (short for World Wide Web) is not the physical network itself; it is a collection of linked documents and pages that are accessed using the internet as the transport layer. E-commerce and social media are services and activities that run on top of both the internet and the web, but neither of them refers to the physical wiring and satellite infrastructure being described here.

Examination reminder: the internet is the physical network; the web is a service that runs on that network. Keep these two terms separate even though they are often used loosely in everyday speech.