[ih] Baran and arbitrary reliability from arbitrarily unreliable components

[Matthias Bärwolff]

Dear all,

I am aware that aspects of this issue have been discussed all over the
place, but I still cannot quite figure out what the factual and logical
role of Paul Baran was for the development of the internet.

His writings strike me as very early and elegant descriptions of the
basic notion that a little redundancy in routes (with greater redundancy
closer to the edges) together with distributed routing algorithms (even
random routing, and routers learning about good routes by counting hops
will do) solves the problems of connectivity, congestion avoidance and
recovery in shared (multiplexed) packet networks without (virtual) circuits.

Had it simply been that this was not immediately relevant for the
Arpanet at first (RFNM), and the later developments leading to the
internet (multiple ASs, routing based on business considerations)?

Thanks for your helping me understanding.
Matthias