[ih] Early Internet history

[Joly MacFie]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 8:11 PM, Richard Bennett <richard at bennett.com> wrote:

> Telegraph had an interesting way of bridging incompatible national
> networks. At national boundaries, PTTs had terminals for their own network
> and for their neighbors'. When messages came in, they were written down and
> then carried to operators of the desired terminal by office boys. The
> messages were then rekeyed and sent on their way.
>
>
>
​Hunter Newby, formerly a manager at Telx at 60 Hudson tells this story. In
the 20s & 30s in NYC Western Union at 60 Hudson​, and AT&T at 32 Ave of A
had to exchange traffic, So they, as Richard says, would exchange paper -
not by office boys but by clay pneumatic tubes under the streets.

Come the 80s, MCI won a consent decree that they could access AT&T's long
distance. However, to do so they needed to colocate at 32 Ave of A. Sorry,
AT&T said, no room at the Inn. MCI were fortunate enough to find some old
lineman who revealed the existence of the old, and pretty much disused clay
tubes. Meanwhile, the lower floors of 60 Hudson were vacant as all tenants
wanted to be up in the light. MCI snapped them up, and pulled wire through
to AT&T's basement. "We're here." they said "Hook us up!" and AT&T couldn't
refuse, and thus it was those tubes that essentially broke open the phone
business.

Later, Telx used the same conduit to establish itself as an IXP.

In 2010 I shot vid of Hunter telling the story. It's about 10 mins in on
http://isoc-ny.org/1637

More recently he has managed to dig up a picture of the original telegraph
routers which, like computers in those days, were women.

That can be seen at around 4:25 on
https://livestream.com/internetsociety/de-cix/videos/138995706

j

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Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
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