---
title: Life of a Request - The First Hop - Into the Smart Network | Cloudflare Docs
description: Imagine your request is a letter you are trying to send to a friend
  across the country. Instead of going through the slow, traditional postal
  service, Cloudflare acts as a hyper-efficient courier company with a fleet of
  delivery hubs all over the world.
chatbotDeprioritize: false
source_url:
  html: https://developers.cloudflare.com/videos/life-of-a-request-1/
  md: https://developers.cloudflare.com/videos/life-of-a-request-1/index.md
---

Imagine your request is a letter you are trying to send to a friend across the country. Instead of going through the slow, traditional postal service, Cloudflare acts as a hyper-efficient courier company with a fleet of delivery hubs all over the world.
