The History of EARN, RARE, and European Networks (part 1)

European networks from the mid-1980’s to the late 2000’s underwent a lot of change, bolstered by the rise and fall of America Online, the laying of a lot of subsea cables, and the creation of several organizations, including EARN and RARE, to bolster the spread and use of the Internet. Daniele Bovio joins Donald Sharp and Russ White on this episode of the History of Networking to give us a good overall perspective of this history.

You can find more information about the history of EARN at https://earn-history.net.

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History of Cable Networks with Rouzbeh Yassini

Cable networks account for the majority of the connectivity at the network edge. Given we started with dial-up over plain old telephone lines, and then with DSL, and were promised “ATM to the home,” how did cable networks grab the edge? Rouzbeh Yassini joins Russ White and Donald Sharp to give us the history of cable networks.

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The History of Networking: John Chapman and Cable Networks

Before the large cable providers came on the scene, most people accessed the Internet through dial-up MODEMS, connecting to services like America Online, across plain old telephone lines. The entrance of cable providers, and cable MODEMs, allowed the edge of the Internet to explode, causing massive growth. Join Donald Sharp and I on this episode of the History of Networking as John Chapman discusses the origins of the cable MODEM, and the origins of the DOCSIS standards.

The collection of technical papers discussed on the show is here: https://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com.

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History of Networking: Mark Nottingham and HTTP

The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) carries the vast majority of all the traffic on the Internet today, and even the vast majority of traffic carried on private networks. How did this protocol originate, and what was the interplay between standards organizations in it’s creation, curation, and widespread deployment? Mark Nottingham joins Donald and I on this episode of the History of Networking to answer our questions.

<em><a href=”https://historyofnetworking.s3.amazonaws.com/Mark-N_HTTP.mp3″>download</a></em>

The History of Comm Servers with Kevin Herbert

Communication Servers designed to support hundreds or thousands of users reached their peak capabilities just as dial-up service access began to recede in importance. In fact, many network engineers today have probably never managed a dial-up communications server, which were once used to connect everything from individual users to services like AOL and remote workers to entire sites (hence OSPF’s demand circuit capability). Kevin Herbert joins us to discuss the early work on communication servers, including some of the challenges of working with early networking hardware.

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History of Networking: Networking at Google with Richard Hay

Google fascinates network engineers because of the sheer scale of their operations, and their obvious influence over the way networks are built and operated. In this episode of the History of Networking, Richard Hay joins Donald Sharp and Russ White to talk about some past designs and stories of failure and success in one of the world’s largest operating networks.

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