[ih] Where it All Started: Panel Discussion on the Birth of the European Internet [RIPE NCC - South East Europe 12 Meeting in Athens, Greece]

Guy Almes galmes at tamu.edu
Fri Jun 14 15:40:59 PDT 2024 

   Three interesting stories.
   A little more detail on the first of them: during the 1990s, there 
was a startup called International Discount Telephony (which still 
exists as idt.net).  It had a switching facility in New Jersey.  Its 
customers were typically from Europe.  An example given customer, say 
living in Frankfurt, would sign up and be assigned a New Jersey phone 
number.  If that customer wanted to call someone in Dallas, he would 
call that NJ phone number.  The switch at IDT would "answer" the call 
and wait for touch tone commands from the customer.  In the example 
given, the customer would then key in the Dallas phone number he was 
actually trying to get to.  The switch would then hang up, place a 
telephone call from New Jersey to the target number in Dallas, place a 
second call from New Jersey to the customer in Frankfurt, and splice the 
two calls together so that the Frankfurt customer was now talking to the 
target Dallas person.  The cost charged to the customer included the 
domestic US long distance New Jersey to Dallas call, the international 
call from New Jersey to Frankfurt, and a fee.  The value all hinged on 
the international call from the US to Germany being much cheaper than 
the call from Germany to the US.
   The idea that they worked even from Geneva to Madrid (thus with two 
international calls from New Jersey) demonstrates the degree of the 
overpricing by European PTTs.  One can imagine how unhappy the PTTs were.
   By some telling of the story, this little New Jersey startup played a 
key role in getting the European PTTs to dramatically reduce their 
prices for international calls.  Again, by some tellings of the story, 
this played a role in the undoing of the whole European PTT thing.

   If there is a flaw in your brief version of the story, it's the 
innocent word "between".  We forget how huge the difference was between 
the US-to-Geneva price and the Geneva-to-US price.

   At that time, Americans were confident that the US phone companies 
were much more reasonable than the European phone companies.

   Regards,
	-- Guy

On 6/14/24 4:58 PM, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history wrote:
> For some years, it was cheaper via New Jersey between Geneva and Madrid, iirc. Also slightly more legal, since the actual switching took place on deregulated US soil.
> 
> There was a story that one of the very large pharma companies based in Basel (Switzerland) had data links out the front door to the Swiss PTT and out the back door into Germany. What happened inside the building was a trade secret ;-).
> 
> At CERN we were switching traffic between researchers. In about 1986, Francois Fluckiger and I went with CERN's Director-General Herwig Schopper to discuss all this with the head of the Swiss PTT. At that time the Swiss allowed "value-added networks" which meant that the data had to be stationary for a while (presumably to have some value added to it). I remember asking how long a packet had to remain inside a router to count as value-added. Anyway we were a treaty organisation so normal rules didn't apply (and we were the biggest switching point in EARN). The PTT had no idea how to respond, so they basically gave us a free pass.
> 
> Regards
>      Brian Carpenter
> 
> On 15-Jun-24 06:53, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
>> or possibly through an NSF sponsored IXP in Chicago? "star-something?"
>> 
>> v
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 2:47 PM John Day via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> If I remember correctly, for quite sometime in the 90s, the cheapest and
>>> fastest route intra-European for all of them was through Northern Virginia.
>>>
>>>> On Jun 14, 2024, at 12:30, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The situation in EU in the 1990+- time frame also impacted networking
>>> outside of academia.  At the time, I was involved in deploying and
>>> operating a private internet (a corporate "intranet") in 100+ countries.
>>> In one case, we had two offices in Europe that could literally (almost) see
>>> each other across a river.   But they were in two different countries.  Due
>>> to the PTT tariffs and constraints, it was far less expensive to lease a
>>> trans-atlantic circuit from each city to New York than it was to lease a
>>> circuit across that river between the two countries.
>>>>
>>>> So all of our IP traffic crossing that river travelled thousands of
>>> miles "across the pond" (Atlantic) to New York City and back.   CEPT may
>>> have made an exception to allow interconnections for academic networking,
>>> but that policy hadn't spread to the rest of us yet.   I don't know when
>>> those rules changed.
>>>>
>>>> Jack Haverty
>>>>
>>>> On 6/14/24 08:48, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
>>>>> that was quite a barrier to networking in the EU - thanks to EARN for
>>>>> making the case.
>>>>> v
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 11:42 AM Daniele Bovio via Internet-history <
>>>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Julf,
>>>>>> In 1984, when EARN was established, it was illegal in Europe to provide
>>>>>> network services amongst different institutions/corporations within
>>>>>> countries and across the borders because the PTTs had the monopoly of
>>> voice
>>>>>> and data transport, so nobody could legally lease circuits amongst an
>>>>>> heterogeneous number of sites and offer data transport services. As a
>>>>>> matter of fact the EARN management was approached by the CEPT (the
>>> European
>>>>>> cooperation structure of the PTTs) threatening to shut the operations
>>> down
>>>>>> exactly for that reason. The EARN Board argued that  the purpose of the
>>>>>> network was to allow scientists to communicate with each other, i.e.
>>> one
>>>>>> homogeneous group: the Research and Academic Community, and eventually
>>>>>> after a lot of arguing the CEPT allowed EARN to continue to operate.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Daniele Bovio
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: Internet-history [mailto:
>>> internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org]
>>>>>> On Behalf Of Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via Internet-history
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2024 4:11 PM
>>>>>> To: Johan Helsingius<julf at julf.com>;internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [ih] Where it All Started: Panel Discussion on the Birth
>>> of
>>>>>> the European Internet [RIPE NCC - South East Europe 12 Meeting in
>>> Athens,
>>>>>> Greece]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for sharing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In response to Julf's point --- wasn't it all academic to start with?
>>>>>> In the early days, academia was leading in a few countries and
>>>>>> EARN/NETNORTH/BITNET interfacing with local networks like JANET (where
>>> I
>>>>>> "lived").
>>>>>> The only alternative at the time was UUCP. (we're talking 1985-88)
>>> Kindest
>>>>>> regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Olivier
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 13/06/2024 14:23, Johan Helsingius via Internet-history wrote:
>>>>>>> Yes, very interesting discussion, but very biased towards the academic
>>>>>>> networks (understandable given the event and the panelists).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>      Julf
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 13/06/2024 14:16, Frantisek Borsik via Internet-history wrote:
>>>>>>>> It was share by RIPE on social media yesterday:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyxbwZzjTw__;!!KwNVnqRv!DkWDwXU_KyfjZj1KKVqgVhoNAnjKnQHLej97d-8k6Lxh47O1F7VUPzNi-5bddOkJJgS8hTjxkm5o8vdHHrWSwhcEauzNyw$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyxbwZzjTw__;!!KwNVnqRv!DkWDwXU_KyfjZj1KKVqgVhoNAnjKnQHLej97d-8k6Lxh47O1F7VUPzNi-5bddOkJJgS8hTjxkm5o8vdHHrWSwhcEauzNyw$>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> All the best,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Frank
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik__;!!KwNVnqRv!DkWDwXU_KyfjZj1KKVqgVhoNAnjKnQHLej97d-8k6Lxh47O1F7VUPzNi-5bddOkJJgS8hTjxkm5o8vdHHrWSwhedAATfSw$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik__;!!KwNVnqRv!DkWDwXU_KyfjZj1KKVqgVhoNAnjKnQHLej97d-8k6Lxh47O1F7VUPzNi-5bddOkJJgS8hTjxkm5o8vdHHrWSwhedAATfSw$>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714 <+421%20919%20416%20714>
>>> <+421%20919%20416%20714>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> iMessage, mobile: +420775230885 <+420%20775%20230%20885>
>>> <+420%20775%20230%20885>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Skype: casioa5302ca
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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