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Top 10 Milestones in the Age of the Internet

Written by admin on April 6th, 2011

People today can’t seem to function without the Internet. It’s as if everything is connected to the world wide web, and our lives are rapidly evolving around it. Regardless of whether we are at home, school, or work, the internet has a constant presence in our daily lives. Furthermore, most devices like cell phones are now connected to the internet, meaning that it virtually governs every aspect of one’s life. While accessing the internet is very common nowadays, it hasn’t always been like this. There have been considerable changes and advancements made throughout history in order to produce a platform of this scale and accessibility. The following sections outline some of the most important changes and happenings in the history of the internet. While they may seem to be a thing of the past, knowing these things helps us to appreciate the internet more. The internet is not an overnight sensation. On the contrary, it took a long time to get where it is today.

1957

During this year, the USSR developed and launched the first artificial satellite called Sputnik. In response to this venture, the United States created the Advanced Research Projects Agency or ARPA under the Department of Defense (DoD). The purpose of the ARPA is to help the United States gain a lead in terms of science and technology. This initial launch was a catalyst, spawning many more science and technology ventures, and opening a gateway into the world of networks and eventually the internet.

1962

Rand Paul Baran was hired by the U.S. Air Force to embark on a research focusing on how to maintain command and control over the country’s bombers and missiles following nuclear attack. Baran was working with RAND Corporation and was commissioned to do a study on developing a military research network that can withstand or persist following a nuclear strike. Further, the military also requested that the network be decentralized so that in the event that locations in the United States were attacked, they would still be able to access control to their nuclear arms and embark on a possible counter-attack. Baran’s research recommended different ways to make this network and connection work. The final proposal from his study discussed a packed switched network. Basically, this refers to the separation of data into different packets, or datagrams, with labels to note their origin and destination. These packets can be forwarded from one computer to another.

1968

The acoustics consulting team of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) won the ARPANET contract to build the first decentralized network for ARPA. During this time, the actual physical network was built, providing a connection to four nodes. These nodes included University of California at Santa Barbara, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Utah, and SRI in Stanford. The physical network was linked using 50 Kbps (Kilobytes per second)circuits.

1972

Ray Tomlinson, working under BBN, invented and organized the first e-mail program. During this time, the ARPANET made use of the Network Control Protocol or NCP during this time to be able to transmit data. This allowed communication to push through between hosts under the same network.

1973

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) embarked on the development of the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and the IP (Internet Provider). The protocol was very important in letting different computers communicate with each other despite coming from different networks.

1981

National Science Foundation developed a backbone referred to as the CSNET (Computer Science Network). This is a 56 Kbps network which will allow different institutions to connect to networks even without access to ARPANET.

1983

The Internet Activities Board (IAB) was created during this time. Machines using the ARPANET were completely replaced and the TCP/IP became the Internet’s central protocol. The use of domain names and IP numbers also began during this period.

1990

The Advanced Network & Services was formed. This was a non-profit organization aimed at conducting studies focused on high speed networking. A new backbone was introduced, the 45 Mbps line. The original lines used for ARPANET were taken out.

1991

CSNET was no longer used and new network was established: the National Research and Education Network, or the NREN. This network specifically supports the huge amount of data transfer in the internet.

2000′s

The early 2000’s saw the era of dot-com sites. The internet extended to millions of users and capitalists began taking an interest in this platform.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 at 7:52 am and is filed under History, Internet, Top 10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.