Event Information - Proceedings - Part 10: Panel Discussion on "Why Did It Succeed?" (November 30, 2007)

Abstract

Panel discussion examines the numerous data networking technologies available in the early 1980s and discusses why the TCP/IP approach, as implemented in the NSFNET, became the dominant form of internetworking by the 1990s. IBM’s System Network Architecture (SNA) had originally dominated the commercial world; DECNET, from Digital Equipment Corp, was widely used in the scientific and research communities; and telephone companies and firms such as Tymnet and Telenet offered network-based computer access via X.25. Other protocols, such as MMDF, RSCS and UUCP, were used to transfer electronic mail and files. In addition, a worldwide data networking standards activity, commonly known as OSI, was supported by almost all of the world’s governments (including the U.S.) and telephone companies. Thus the TCP/IP-based Internet did not develop in a clean-slate environment. Panel reviews the earlier standards, explores why the TCP/IP-based Internet succeeded while the others did not, and highlights the role of the NSFNET in this process