Scott Bradner remarks that Dennis Jenning reminded him that the NSFNet project was approved 21 years ago. In case you’ve forgotten or weren’t on the net back then, NSFNet was a fast (T1! Really fast for back then!) backbone network meant for primarily academic use, and that also served as the primary backbone of the Internet. This was in 1985, remember, six years before the first commercial long-haul ISPs (UUNET and PSINet).

By one measure the Internet has reached the age of majority in Washington, D.C. – one of the places that seems to have the worst understanding of what the Internet was, is and can be. The technology trickle that became the Internet started with research into packet-based networks in the early to mid 1960s by Len Kleinrock, Larry Roberts, Paul Baron and others (Google can help you find lots of information on these folks).

Key decisions that enabled the ‘Net By Scott Bradner, ‘Net Insider, Network World, 10/02/06

Scott lists ten design decisions that let the Internet be what it is today. Continue reading →