On the History of Internet, its Future and Challenges

Sivasubramanian M
President, Isoc India Chennai
isolatednet@gmail.com

India Chennai Great Lakes Remote IGF Hub

of the IGF 2010, Vilnius, Lithuania, 14-17 Sep 2010

Internet is not a single network, but a worldwide
collection of loosely connected networks that are
accessible by individual computer hosts in a
variety of ways, including gateways, routers, dial-
up connections, and Internet service providers.

The Internet is easily accessible to anyone with a
computer and a network connection. Individuals
and organizations worldwide can reach any point
on the network without regard to national or
geographic boundaries or time of day

Evolved by participation, technology and
standards developed by participation


Compare it with other inventions Electricity or
Telephones - Invented by someone, technology
commercialized by a commerical corporation,
infrastrure owned by business corporations and
services offered based on proprietary standards
and commerical models.

Initiated by the US military, Internet evoloved by
participation, not owned or controlled by any
business entity or government. It is an open
network or networks.
The Birth of the Internet

Advance Research Projects Agency

( ARPA ) established in 1958. Satellites
launched after a year.

A project to interconnect Defense

Computers in 1962 (ITPO)

This became the ARPANET in 1969.

The first connection

Four computers, at UCLA, UCSB,

Stanford and UTAH were connected on
Oct 29, 1969 by the pioneers including
Vint Cerf, the Father of Internet.

The first message was Log, L was sent, o

was sent and when g was typed the
computers crashed.

That was the birth of the ARPANET which

became the NSFNET which became the
Internet.
 The first connection

The first connection

Vint Cerf, the Father of Internet
John Postel
Dr Steve Crocker
Equally important names associated with
ARPANET:

•J.C.R. Licklider
•Larry Roberts
•Robert Kahn
•Will Crowther and Dave Walden
•Mike Wingfield
•Paul Baran
 Internet Growth

Four computers in 1969 became 210 computers in

1981, 130,000 computers in 1989.

The Internet was mainly in the realm of Government

and Universities.

The applications were BBS, Gopher, Archie, Line

Browsers… until the invention of hypertext and the
World Wide Web in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee
 Hypertext and the WWW

From 1973 the Internet has extended

beyond the USA. Tim Berners-Lee and team
worked on the hypertext project to create
the World Wide Web in 1990. This made it
possible to link to text documents, images
and other files and the World Wide Web,
usable by users everywhere was born.
 Tim Berners-Lee

Note that this picture is in color while the pictures before

aren't. (Not intended but noticed)
 Internet Today

800 million computers worldwide

An estimated 1.46 billion users.

 Internet Tomorrow

Not the next billion, Next Billions.

Internet accessed not by Desktop and

Laptop computers, by various types of
Internet Devices and 'Things'
 Internet Tomorrow

Today: 256 KBPS / 512 KBPS

Tomorrow:

1 MBPS ? 8 MPBS ?
 Internet Tomorrow

Or 1 GBPS ? 10 GBPS ?

Download a HD quality movie in 3 seconds ?

 Internet Tomorrow

In experiments related to the CERN’s LHC data transfer speeds

in excess of 2.8 Giga bps have been achieved
 What is special about
the Internet?

• Evolved by Participation for participation

• Standards by Community Model

• has its own conventions, culture and

ethos, unwritten rules - all without a
hierarchy of authority, with an inherent
order.
 What is special about
the Internet?

• Accessible worldwide. Transcends the

boundaries of nations

• neutral of technology, nationhood,

language, religion or race.

• open medium for freedom of speech

 What is special about
the Internet?

• brings together people from around the

world and has been considerably free of
politics.
• Internet is a space without privilege or
prejudice accorded by race, economic
power, military force, or station of birth
• legal concepts of property, expression,
identity, movement, and context on the
Internet are different
Who owns the Internet?

• The Telephone / cable companies?

• The Internet Hardware companies?
• The computer companies?
• The Governments?

Or,

Is that you ?
Who controls the Internet?

• Business?
• Government?
• Any International Organization (s) ?

Should Internet be controlled ? Governed ?

Internet requires an overall policy framework. These
Governance aspects are debated at the Internet
Governance Forum. Various stakeholders
participated in the World Summit on the
Information Society ( WSIS ) which during its
meeting at Tunis gave the UN Secretary General a
mandate to convene teh Internet Governance
Forum, So far four IGF's have been held – at
Athens, Rio de Jenario, Hyderabad and Sharm el
Sheik. Next IGF will be at Vilnius, Lithuania.
Internet Governance

Mutli-stakeholder
No hierarchy
No seating arrangements
Government - Business - Civil Society -
International Organizations - Academic Community
All stakeholders are equal.
 The Internet
Governance Forum

World Summit on the Information Society

WSIS met at Geneva and Tunis in 2003

Decided that all stakeholders should join

together to discuss about Internet
Governance

The Internet Governance Forum was

established to meet every year for 5 years
 The Internet
Governance Forum

Athens, Greece in 2006

Rio de Jeneiro, Brazil.

Hyderabad, India, December, 2008

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, 2009

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2010

IGF Stakeholders

Business

Government

Civil Society
What do you want the Internet to be?

Free and Open?

An Internet of Rules and Regulations?

Censorship?

Who decides?
PARTICIPATE
 How to participate?

The Internet Society

Founded in 1992 by Internet pioneers

International non-profit organization
90+ organization members
28,000+ individual members
90+ chapters worldwide
 About ISOC

The Internet Society

•ISOC works for the open development and evolution

of the Internet
•Works for Internet for all people.
•Works across the areas of technical standards,
education and capacity-building as well as public
policy.

http://www.isoc.org
ISOC India Chennai Chapter

•200+ members from four states of India.

•Membership open to students.

http://isocmadras.blogspot.com
Thank You

Sivasubramanian M
turiya@in.com