[ih] How TCP and the Internet "won" outside of the US?

[Tom Lyon]

Someone in Finland told me that Finland got a huge head-start with TCP/IP
because in the 80s, as a satellite economy to the USSR, they were not
aligned with the rest of Europe - and could skip the OSI protocol nonsense.

See also https://siy.fi/history-of-the-finnish-internet/

On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 1:23 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 7/23/24 10:16, Gergely Buday via Internet-history wrote:
> > Russia does not like the open Internet as they did not like Radio Free
> > Europe.
> >
> > - Gergely
>
> I've always been curious about the adoption of the TCP-based Internet as
> it spread outside the US.
>
> Inside the US, the Internet, and TCP, was characterized as "an
> Experiment".   It might provide research insights, but the "real" next
> generation system was being aggressively developed by big corporations,
> perhaps to evolve into some kind of OSI standards-based data
> communications infrastructure for the world - much as the telephone,
> telegraph, postal, and other such older global communications
> infrastructures had evolved.
>
> The perception of the Internet as just "an experiment" made it of little
> relevance to the competitors, both corporations and standards bodies,
> that were battling to define the actual next generation. Thus, as just
> an Experiment,  the Internet got little attention from corporate or
> political interests.   It grew on its own and likely surprised a lot of
> people when it exploded and dominated, especially through the 1990s
> after the Web appeared and provided content and services interesting to
> the general public.
>
> I've always assumed that the Internet grew outside the US much as it had
> grown inside.   But is that true?
>
> So my question is --- How was the Internet received by the political and
> commercial interests in other countries?   Was it viewed as a threat, or
> ignored as irrelevant?  In the US, IIRC a lot of big companies were
> blindsided by the sudden (to them) emergence of the Internet and TCP.
>
> But elsewhere?  For a country that "does not like the open Internet",
> when did they realize that, and what did they do about it?
>
> Any recollections, pointers to literature, etc.?
>
> Jack Haverty
>
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