---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <fb40e834-623c-4779-be65-72c8b51053c8@googlegroups.com> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2018 13:07:17 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Frank Heart, Who Linked Computers Before the Internet, Dies at 89 On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 at 4:16:06 PM UTC-4, Monty Solomon wrote: > Frank Heart, the engineer who oversaw development of the first routing > computer for the Arpanet, the precursor to the internet, died on > Sunday at a retirement community in Lexington, Mass. He was 89. > > Mr. Heart's team built the gateway device for the Arpanet, the pre- > cursor to the internet. Data networking was so new then, they made > it up as they went. > > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/technology/frank-heart-who-linked-computers-before-the-internet-dies-at-89.html Not to minimize Mr. Heart's contributions, but the article credits several improvements to him which were actually developed back in the 1950s. "To this day, many of the principles Mr. Heart emphasized reliability, error resistance and the capacity for self-correction, remain central to the internet's robustness." The Western Union Technical Review, on this newsgroup's archives, has numerous articles from the 1950s on data transmission reliability. The Bell System, IBM, and MIT, among others, also conducted considerable research on that subject in the 1950s. Ref: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/10-3/p089.htm http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/11-4/p144.htm "Data networking was so new that Mr. Heart and his team had no choice but to invent technology as they went. For example, the Arpanet sent data over ordinary phone lines. Human ears tolerate low levels of extraneous noise on a phone line, but computers can get tripped up by the smallest hiss or pop, producing transmission errors. Mr. Heart and his team devised a way for the I.M.P.s (pronounced imps) to detect and correct errors as they occurred." The Bell System, IBM, MIT, and others were experimenting with this back in the 1950s. For example: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/whirlwind/M-series/M24-33_Some_Results_on_the_Transmission_of_Pulses_Over_Telephone_Lines_Apr54.pdf IBM developed a transceiver to transmit data, which included an error detection and correction protocol. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <4030bc57-0462-4de7-850c-683b4edb23f5@googlegroups.com> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:48:34 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Calhoun MI 911 not working for Verizon users On Thursday, June 28, 2018 at 10:15:42 AM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote: > BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WOOD) - 911 service has been restored to many in > Calhoun County. > > People with landlines or any cellphone service except for Verizon > Wireless can now call 911 in the event of an emergency. > > Verizon users in need of police, firefighters or an ambulance should > call 269.781.0912. > > The cause of the outage was not released Wednesday night. Crews are > working to fix the problem completely. > https://www.woodtv.com/news/kalamazoo-and-battle-creek/calhoun-county-911-outage/1269266981 Years ago, Bell Telephone bragged in ads about the reliability of telephone service for emergencies, and how telephone operators would go the extra length to help a caller in distress: LIFE 1966 https://books.google.com/books?id=WFYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA81&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20reliable&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false LIFE 1963 (two pages) https://books.google.com/books?id=WFYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA81&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20reliable&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false (There were a number of ads like this in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, the Bell System encouraged children to know how to dial [the] Operator in case of an emergency.) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20180630031552.GA10290@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2018 23:15:52 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Friday's Massive Comcast Outage Shows How Fragile The Internet Is By Lily Hay Newman Widespread Internet outages around the United States on Friday afternoon quelled productivity and sent irate customers to Twitter to complain. Comcast and Xfinity suffered the biggest service interruptions across its internet, cable, and landline products. The company, which has more than 29 million business and individual customers, said on Friday that the outages stemmed from fiber optic cables at two internet infrastructure companies that were cut or otherwise disrupted. Like virtually all internet providers, Comcast relies on a combination of its own fiber optic infrastructure and that of other partner companies to seamlessly route data around the world. https://www.wired.com/story/friday-comcast-outage-cut-fiber/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 30 Jun 2018