Bit disappointed in John Naughton today … first he gets the year wrong for the first commercial SMS — it was 1992 regardless of when your phone supported it, John. Then, in today’s new spangly Berliner-format Observer, he states that the Internet was “developed between 1973 and 1983”.
The first international connection — from the United States to the UK via Norway — was made in 1973, but the network project was put forward in 1966, awarded to BBN in 1968, and went live in 1969. If you want to be really pedantic, the Internet as we know it, TCP/IP and all, went live in 1983. Development of that took place between 1974 and 1982, but the transition to TCP/IP was just that — a transition. The underlying network remained the same. For myself, the Internet development timeline will always run from 1968 to the present day; it’s an always-evolving network, and development never ceases. This is why John’s “full of holes†network doesn’t still run with a 56 kilobit per second backbone.
Some key dates from Hobbes’ Internet Timeline:
- 1969: First ARPANET connection made
- 1974: TCP design published by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn
- 1975: First TCP transcontinental satellite tests performed
- 1978: TCP becomes TCP/IP
- 1979: CSNET planning begins; ICCB established
- 1974: TCP design published by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn
- 1981: Plan published to transition from NCP to TCP/IP
- 1982: TCP/IP established as ARPANET and DoD networking standard; “internet” and “Internet” defined; NORSAR and UCL depart from ARPANET and transition to TCP/IP
- 1983: ARPANET transitions from NCP to TCP/IP; MILNET separated from ARPANET
- 1984: DNS introduced
- 1986: NSFNET and regional networks created
Thanks for picking me up about commercial SMS. My 1988 Nokia phone had it, though. But I stand by my statement about the Internet opening for business in January 1983. The earlier ARPANET work, though relevant, was not a TCP/IP based system.