Editing History of the Internet (section)

===Packet switching===
[[File:The idea of the data packet (Baran, 1964)-en.svg|thumb|The "message block", designed by [[Paul Baran]] in 1962 and refined in 1964, is the first proposal of a [[data packet]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Press |first=Gil |title=A Very Short History Of The Internet And The Web |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2015/01/02/a-very-short-history-of-the-internet-and-the-web-2/ |access-date=2020-01-30 |website=Forbes |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":10" />]]
{{Main|Packet switching}}

The infrastructure for [[telephone]] systems at the time was based on [[circuit switching]], which requires pre-allocation of a dedicated communication line for the duration of the call. [[Telegram]] services had developed [[store and forward]] telecommunication techniques. [[Western Union]]'s Automatic Telegraph Switching System [[Plan 55-A]] was based on [[message switching]]. The U.S. military's [[AUTODIN]] network became operational in 1962. These systems, like SAGE and SBRE, still required rigid routing structures that were prone to [[single point of failure]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kim |first1=Byung-Keun |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lESrw3neDokC&pg=PA52 |title=Internationalising the Internet the Co-evolution of Influence and Technology |date=2005 |publisher=Edward Elgar |isbn=978-1-84542-675-0 |pages=51–55}}</ref>

The technology was considered vulnerable for strategic and military use because there were no alternative paths for the communication in case of a broken link. In the early 1960s, [[Paul Baran]] of the [[RAND Corporation]] produced a study of survivable networks for the U.S. military in the event of nuclear war.<ref>{{Cite report |title=Reliable Digital Communications Using Unreliable Network Repeater Nodes |first=Paul |last=Baran |page=1 |date=May 27, 1960 |publisher=The RAND Corporation |url=http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P1995.pdf |access-date=July 25, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About Rand |url=http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html |access-date=July 25, 2012 |work=Paul Baran and the Origins of the Internet}}</ref> Information would be transmitted across a "distributed" network, divided into what he called "message blocks".<ref name="Pelkey6.1a">{{Cite book |last=Pelkey |first=James L. |title=Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968–1988 |chapter=6.1 The Communications Subnet: BBN 1969 |quote=As Kahn recalls: ... Paul Baran’s contributions ... I also think Paul was motivated almost entirely by voice considerations. If you look at what he wrote, he was talking about switches that were low-cost electronics. The idea of putting powerful computers in these locations hadn’t quite occurred to him as being cost effective. So the idea of computer switches was missing. The whole notion of protocols didn’t exist at that time. And the idea of computer-to-computer communications was really a secondary concern. |chapter-url=https://historyofcomputercommunications.info/section/6.1/the-communications-subnet-bbn-1969/}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Barber |first1=Derek |date=Spring 1993 |title=The Origins of Packet Switching |url=http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res05.htm#f |journal=The Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society |issue=5 |issn=0958-7403 |access-date=6 September 2017 |quote=There had been a paper written by [Paul Baran] from the Rand Corporation which, in a sense, foreshadowed packet switching in a way for speech networks and voice networks}}</ref><ref name=":5a">{{Cite book |last=Waldrop |first=M. Mitchell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eRnBEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT285 |title=The Dream Machine |date=2018 |publisher=Stripe Press |isbn=978-1-953953-36-0 |pages=286 |language=en |quote=Baran had put more emphasis on digital voice communications than on computer communications.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=On packet switching |url=https://www.nethistory.info/Archives/packets.html |access-date=2024-01-08 |website=Net History |quote=[Scantlebury said] Clearly Donald and Paul Baran had independently come to a similar idea albeit for different purposes. Paul for a survivable voice/telex network, ours for a high-speed computer network.}}</ref> Baran's design was not implemented.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Metz |first=Cade |date=3 September 2012 |title=What Do the H-Bomb and the Internet Have in Common? Paul Baran |url=https://www.wired.com/2012/09/what-do-the-h-bomb-and-the-internet-have-in-common-paul-baran/ |magazine=WIRED |quote=He was very conscious of people mistaken belief that the work he did at RAND somehow led to the creation of the ARPAnet. It didn't, and he was very honest about that.}}</ref>

In addition to being prone to a single point of failure, existing telegraphic techniques were inefficient and inflexible. Beginning in 1965 [[Donald Davies]], at the [[National Physical Laboratory, UK|National Physical Laboratory]] in the United Kingdom, independently developed a more advanced proposal of the concept, designed for high-speed [[computer network]]ing, which he called [[packet switching]], the term that would ultimately be adopted.<ref name=":62">{{Cite book |last=Yates |first=David M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ToMfAQAAIAAJ&q=packet+switch |title=Turing's Legacy: A History of Computing at the National Physical Laboratory 1945-1995 |date=1997 |publisher=National Museum of Science and Industry |isbn=978-0-901805-94-2 |page=132-4 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="A Hey, G Pápay2">{{cite book |author=A Hey, G Pápay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NrMkBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA201 |title=The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521766456 |pages=201 |access-date=2015-08-16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Gareth Ffowc |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=waCYEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 |title=For the Recorde: A History of Welsh Mathematical Greats |date=2022 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-917-6 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dr. Ed Smith, FBCS, FITP, University of the Third Age; Mr Chris Miller BSc.; Prof Jim Norton OBE, FREng, University of Sheffield |title=Packet Switching: The first steps on the road to the information society |url=https://www.npl.co.uk/getattachment/about-us/History/Famous-faces/Donald-Davies/UK-role-in-Packet-Switching-(1).pdf |website=National Physical Laboratory}}</ref>

Packet switching is a technique for transmitting computer data by splitting it into very short, standardized chunks, attaching routing information to each of these chunks, and transmitting them independently through a [[computer network]]. It provides better bandwidth utilization than traditional circuit-switching used for telephony, and enables the connection of computers with different transmission and receive rates. It is a distinct concept to message switching.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ruthfield |first=Scott |url=http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=332198.332202&coll=portal&dl=ACM |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018045734/http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds2-1/inet-history.html |archive-date=October 18, 2007 |url-status=live |title=The Internet's History and Development From Wartime Tool to the Fish-Cam |periodical=Crossroads |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=2–4 |date=September 1995 |access-date=April 1, 2016 |doi=10.1145/332198.332202}}</ref>