[ih] infrastructure history [was: who invented the Internet]

[johnl at iecc.com (John R. Levine)]

> Looking at the details of research, development and operations for 
> packet-switching and interworking, represented in today's Internet, I believe 
> there was primarily government funding until the latter '80s, when 
> commercialization started.  I believe the three notable exceptions were 
> PARC's ethernet, Digital's routing work, and the interplay between PARC and 
> ARPA reserarch folk.

I was more thinking of big help in that it was built largely by 
non-government organizations out of non-government parts, albeit paid for 
by government money.

The transcontinental railroad was much the same, all government money (in 
the form of cheap loans and large land grants) from 1862 until it started 
revenue service in 1869, and even then I expect that the UP and CP moved a 
lot of mail and military traffic.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly