From the Publisher:
In Inventing the Internet, Janet Abbate focuses on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internet's design and use. She unfolds an often twisting tale of collaboration and conflict among a remarkable variety of players, including government and military agencies, computer scientists in academia and industry, graduate students, telecommunications companies, standards organizations, and network users.

Inventing the Internet

The problem of optimally choosing message rates for users of a store-and-forward network is analyzed. Multiple users sharing the links of the network each attempt to adjust their message rates to achieve an ideal network operating point or an "ideal tradeoff point between high throughput and low delay." Each user has a fixed path or virtual circuit. In this environment, a basic definition of "ideal delay-throughput tradeoff" is given and motivated. This definition concentrates on a fair allocation of network resources at network bottlenecks. This "ideal policy" is implemented via a decentralized algorithm that achieves the unique set of optimal throughputs. All sharers constrained by the same bottleneck are treated fairly by being assigned equal throughputs. A generalized definition of ideal tradeoff is then introduced to provide more flexibility in the choice of message rates. With this definition, the network may accommodate users with different types of message traffic. A transformation technique reduces the problem of optimizing this performance measure to the problem of optimizing the basic measure.

Bottleneck Flow Control

Packet switching offers attractive advantages over the more eonventional circuit-switched scheme, namely, flexibility in setting up user connections and more efficient use of resources after the connection is established. However, if user demands are allowed to exceed the system capacity, unpleasant congestion effects occur which rapidly neutralize the delay and efficiency advantages. Congestion can be eliminated by using an appropriate set of traffic monitoring and control procedures called flow control procedures. Flow control can be exercised at various levels in a packet network. The following levels are identified and discussed in this paper: hop level, entry-to-exit level, network access level, and transport level. For each level, the most representative techniques are surveyed and compared. Furthermore, the interaction between the different levels is discussed.

Flow Control: A Comparative Survey

An overview is provided in this paper of the routing procedures used in a number of operating networks, as well as in two commercial network architectures. The networks include TYMNET, ARPANET, and TRANSPAC. The network architectures discussed are the IBM SNA and the DEC DNA. The routing algorithms all tend to fall in the shortest path class. In the introductory sections, routing procedures in general are discussed, with specialization to shortest path algorithms. Two shortest path algorithms, one appropriate for centralized computation, the other for distributed computation, are described. These algorithms, in somewhat modified form, provide the basis for the algorithms actually used in the networks discussed.

Routing Techniques Used in Computer Communication Networks

Over the past decade data communications has been revolutionized by a radically new technology called packet switching. In 1968 virtually all interactive data communication networks were circuit switched, the same as the telephone network. Circuit switching networks preallocate transmission bandwidth for an entire call or session. However, since interactive data traffic occurs in short bursts 90 percent or more of this bandwidth is wasted. Thus, as digital electronics became inexpensive enough, it became dramatically more cost-effective to completely redesign communications networks, introducing the concept of packet switching where the transmission bandwidth is dynamically allocated, permitting many users to share the same transmission line previously required for one user. Packet switching has been so successful, not only in improving the economics of data communications but in enhancing reliability and functional flexibility as well, that in 1978 virtually all new data networks being built throughout the world are based on packet switching. An open question at this time is how long will it take for voice communications to be revolutionized as well by packet switching technology. In order to better understand both the past and future evolution of this fast moving technology, this paper examines in detail the history and trends of packet switching.

S. Ritzenthaler

Papers

The French Public Packet Switching Service: The Transpac Network.