[ih] capacity v bandwidth

[Vint Cerf]

inline responses

On Tue, Jun 2, 2026 at 1:39 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Not quite what I remember.
>
> The ICCB was the Internet Configuration Control Board.  Bob Kahn called
> it "Vint's Cabinet".   The name was chosen explicitly to make it sound
> bureaucratic and boring.   Otherwise everyone would have wanted to be on
> it, and a big problem at the time (late 1970s) was the size of the
> various "internet meetings".  Dave Clark was a member of the ICCB, but
> Vint was clearly the Chair.  I don't recall a single meeting not run by
> Vint.
>
but officially Dave was the chair even if I ran the meeting. I had always
intended to hand off to him, as I finally did in late 1982.
Dave (among many others) was an extraordinarily clear thinker about the
architecture and protocols of the Internet. Not better proof of that is his
book "How to Design an Internet."


>
> The ICB was the International Collaboration Board (or something like
> that).  There was overlap (e.g., Vint) in the ICB and ICCB memberships.
> The ICCB focussed on planning and execution of the steps needed to
> target a "January 1983" Internet capable of handling "heavy load".   The
> ICB focussed on issues specific to trans-national connectivity, e.g.,
> between the US and Europe, and had members such as John Laws (RSRE),
> Horst Klaussen (DFVLR), Peter Kirstein (UCL), and Paal Spilling (NDRE).
> May have been others too.  Someone from CNUCE (Italy) was probably
> involved but I never met him or her.
>
Yes that's correct about ICB. Bob Kahn sert that up and I believe Peter K
chaired.

>
> The earliest ICCB meeting I can find so far in my notes was on September
> 21, 1981.  I think it may have been the first meeting of the ICCB, based
> on what's in the notes I took.  I recall at some point around then
> getting an email from Vint asking if I could come a day early to the
> next Internet Meeting, which turned out to be the first meeting of the
> new ICCB.  I'm not sure, but think it was that September 1981 meeting.
>   My notes don't have an attendee list, but IIRC the ICCB meetings
> included Jim Mathis, Dave Clark, Jon Postel, Dave Mills, Bob Braden, Ed
> Cain, Ray McFarland, myself (Jack Haverty), and of course Vint.
>
> Meetings of the ICCB were usually held the day before a scheduled
> Internet Meeting.  We were typically considering what had to happen
> near-term for a January 1983 target of an Internet capable of handling
> "heavy load", as well as long-term issues that needed more research.
> The 1983 target was clearly associated with the intent to replace NCP on
> the ARPANET with TCP, and the adoption of TCP as a DoD Standard.
>
> It was less than two years away -- not a lot of time to get everything
> in place.   There was a clear conflict between "Research" and
> "Operations".  Research seeks to study and try new ideas; Operations
> seeks to get something in place and working as a service.  The Internet
> needed to do both.
>
> After an ICCB meeting we all returned to our regular activities and did
> whatever we could to get the near-term actions to happen and the
> long-term issues to get as much attention as possible.  The
> prioritization helped also for Vint to control the Internet Meeting
> which immediately followed.   "Herding Cats" comes to mind....
>
> I was on the ICCB until Vint's departure from ARPA and Barry Leiner
> reorganized the ICCB to become the IAB.   There had been a major
> re-organization at BBN in July 1983 and I was no longer to be involved
> in the "research" contracts.
>
> I can't remember if this list accepts attachments -- so I've put my
> notes from that 1981 ICCB meeting online for History's sake.  The last
> page starts my notes for the Internet Meeting of 9/22, but JonP's
> minutes are much better.
>
> Here's a link for anyone who's interested:
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sxKhB-11jkVaVNCPVGwit3PTQDdta-Qr/view?usp=sharing


AMAZING!!!

>
>
> /Jack Haverty
>
> On 6/2/26 08:53, D Waitzman via Internet-history wrote:
> > Regarding the history subtopic:
> >
> > https://www.iab.org/about/history/
> > has:
> >> The origin of today’s IAB lies in the Internet Configuration Control
> Board (ICCB), which was created in 1979 by Vint Cerf, at that time program
> manager at DARPA, to advise him on technical issues. The ICCB was chaired
> by David Clark, MIT.
> >>
> >> In September 1984, after the ICCB meeting held at RSRE in Malvern, UK,
> the ICCB was disbanded and replaced by the Internet Advisory Board (IAB).
> This change was initiated by Dave Clark and Barry Leiner, who had taken
> over management of the Internet research program at DARPA. The IAB
> consisted of the chairs of the newly-formed research task forces and Jon
> Postel (ISI), as RFC editor and “protocol czar”. The first set of chairs of
> the task forces were the members of the ICCB. The IAB was chaired by Dave
> Clark.
> >
> > I thought it was called the ICB, not ICCB.  I attended a meeting in The
> Hague at NATO's STC around 1991.  MAJ (or COL by then?) Pullen was funding
> us.
> >
> > Noel Chiappa wrote:
> >> There's a reason that, for professional historians, contemporaneous
> written records are the 'gold standard'. All other sources - especially
> human memory - are very inferior.
> >
> > Circa 1989 on a Friday afternoon, Steve Storch asked me to fly to
> California for a Monday ICB or IETF Host Requirements meeting to take notes.
> > Fortunately, BBN had a capable onsite travel agent in our building (10
> Moulton) who quickly booked me tickets (pre-web this was a big deal).
> > I emailed out the next on Tuesday to Bob Braden, who emailed them out to
> the team with a subject line like "Shazam!" since the notes usually took
> longer to be written up and distributed.
> > (I was amused by the cost of a note taker for that contract.)
> >
> > Those certainly meet Noel's gold standard, but I cannot find that email.
> >
> > --
> > David Waitzman
> >
>
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