How the Internet Came About


The Internet requires different networks to be able to talk to each other, regardless of which hardware, OS and programming languages they use. It’s only when you think of it that way do you realize how difficult it must have been to achieve it! Not just technically, but organizationally and politically.

In the 1960’s, the US government (via ARPA) wanted inter-networking across universities. One, to allow for ease of information sharing. Two, to enable sharing of computing power! The second reason was also why many of the initial participants were reluctant to join in, explains Walter Isaacson in Innovators:
“The universities in general did not want to share their computers with anybody. They wanted to buy their own machines.”
When persuasion failed, the coordinators switched to threats:
“There would be no more funding to buy computers until they were hooked into the network.”
But the ARPA team also looked to address legitimate concerns. They realized universities did not want to “waste” their computing resources on routing logic (Where should the message be sent? Which route should it take? etc). So ARPA decided to create dedicated routers to make those decisions:
1)      This solution took the load off the university computers;
2)     It allowed ARPA to standardize the network;
3)     Routing was now completely distributed, with no centralized hub.

The next question was how were the messages to be sent? Via dedicated lines (too expensive)? Store-and-forward (waiting period would be unpredictable)? Packet switching (break the message into smaller packets, each packet sent take a route based on network congestion, and finally all the packets are reassembled in the right order at the receiving end)?

They decided to go with packet switching. It had the added advantage that it was decentralized. But AT&T, the largest telecom company in the US, refused to buy into the packet approach since, er… “Son, here’s how a telephone works”, one AT&T executive said patronizingly. Eventually though, they agreed…

But packet switching was still just an idea. Research teams were then selected to make it a reality. Actually, it was left to humble graduate students!
“(They) kept meeting and sharing ideas while they waited for some Powerful Official to descend upon them… But this was a new age. The network was supposed to be distributed… Its inventions and rules would be user-generated. The process would be open.”
That open-to-anyone-to-comment/critique led to the now famous RFC (Request for Comments) methodology: “friendly, not bossy, inclusive and collegial”. The “grown-ups” never came, and the system just evolved by consensus to become what we don’t even think about anymore: the bedrock on which all connectivity is based.

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