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

[Eberhard W Lisse]

UUCP (Taylor) and UUPC (!) were instrumental in "connecting" several countries to the Internet, notably South Africa (Mike Lawrie), Namibia (yours truly) and Cambodia (and of course others I am not personally so aware off (such as Zimbabwe and Zambia). Randy Bush deserves huge credit here.

Using smail allowed simple domain name based routing, batching and compressing made this very effective.

Incremental growth with cost recovery led to seamless switching to a leased line once that was cheaper.

Sendmail (m4) and Postfix also support(ed) batching/compressing, until there was bandwidth to speak off.


el


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Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (retired)
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On 15. Jun 2024 at 11:36 +0200, Johan Helsingius via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>, wrote:
> Daniele,
>
> I am well aware of the situation, the PTT monopolies and the "ITU
> Regime" back in the day. That didn't stop us from running UUCP,
> with email and netnews - but I agree, it wasn't IP and it wasn't
> over leased lines.
>
> Julf
>
> On 14/06/2024 17:41, Daniele Bovio via Internet-history 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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyxbwZzjTw
> > > >
> > > > All the best,
> > > >
> > > > Frank
> > > >
> > > > Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
> > > >
> > > > Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714
> > > >
> > > > iMessage, mobile: +420775230885
> > > >
> > > > Skype: casioa5302ca
> > > >
> > > > frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
> > --
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> >
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