| In communications,
as in transportation, it is more economical for many users to share a common resource
rather than each to build his own system -- particularly when supplying intermittent
or occasional service. This intermittency of service is highly characteristic
of digital communication requirements. Therefore, we would like to consider the
interconnection, one day, of many all-digital links to provide a resource optimized
for the handling of data for many potential intermittent users -- a new common-user
system. - Paul
Baran, On
Distributed Communications, Volume I, 1964. |
The geographic distribution of the Internet continues
to spread, around the world and even beyond.
A key attribute of the Internet is
that once you have connected to any part of it, you can communicate with all
of it. All of the Internet's technologies -- web, newsgroups, email, mailing lists,
IRC, MUD's -- enable
geographically distributed groups of people to communicate who otherwise couldn't
do so. Largely because the basic architecture of
the Internet is open -- fundamentally designed to connect new networks
-- this powerful communication medium has spread rapidly
to interconnect
our world and
turned it into a true multi-way electronic global
village.
The rapid geographic distribution of the Internet is
having the same effect on our civilization as previous inventions that have dramatically
expanded the geographic boundaries of our communication abilities, each making
the world just a bit smaller, such as the following:
Boats
Horses
Roads
Books
Printing
presses
Railroads
Typewriters
Telegraphs
Cars
Amateur radios
Telephones
Citizen
band radio
Satellites
The Internet is the latest and most powerful such invention, with a current
distribution to every corner of this planet, and already inevitably moving
into space.
