1. Business Administration 466 Lecture 1 Notes
What is a Network?
A network can be defined as two or more entities connected to each other through a medium
A computer network can then be defined as two or more computers connected together to work cooperatively
The term “computer network” is giving way to “network of devices”
smartphones… digital wallets?
Drew Parker September 2006

2. Business Administration 466 Lecture 1 Notes
Data Networks
Local Area Networks
Small, low cost connection of PCs (possibly with larger machines)
3Com, Intel, Novell, Microsoft, and Linux are major players in providing hardware and/or software
Wide Area Networks
Across geographical boundaries
Expensive, mission critical connections for businesses and communications companies
The Internet, private corporate data networks
Drew Parker September 2006

3. The Internet
It actually evolved over a long, long time…

4. Telegraph Samuel F. B. Morse received a patent in 1838
Hence the name Morse code
The first message was sent from Washington to Baltimore on 24th of May 1844
Western Union Telegraph & Co was founded in 1856
Morse code was dropped as a US Navy communication medium in 1998

5. Transatlantic Cable
London was still world financial centre in the mid 1800s
Peabody & Company (predecessor of J. P. Morgan & Company) funded a project to lay the first transatlantic cable for telegraph
Started in 1856, completed 1858
Queen Victoria’s congratulatory message to President Buchanan took 16 hours to transmit
Three weeks later the cable broke
A more reliable cable was laid in 1866 between St. Johns, Newfoundland and Valentia, Ireland
Immensely useful business tool

6. Telephone
Charles Bourseul had the original idea of transmitting sound over electric waves
1876 Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone
He asked Western Telegraph Company to buy his patent for $100,000:
"What shall we do with a toy like that?"

7. Wireless Friedrich Hertz discovered the electromagnetic wave in 1888
Wireless was born
Guglielmo Marchese Marconi 
exploited this discovery
1901 he bridged the Atlantic with his wireless telegraphy

8. Bell Labs
Lucent Bell labs is the springboard of many of today’s communications (and computer) technologies
“Its employees have generated more than 40,000 inventions since The average home contains at least 25 products that stem from Bell Labs innovations, including phones, TVs, remote controls, VCRs, radios, stereos, CD players, and computers”

9. Transistors 1947 Bell labs invented the transistor
Some team members left Bell Labs and founded Fairchild semiconductor
Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce left Fairchild in 1967 to found Intel
Gordon Moore made a famous prediction in 1965
“the doubling of transistors every couple of years“
Now known as Moore’s Law

10. Newer Technologies Yet
Satellites were developed in the 1960s for communication purposes
Optical fiber in 1966 (use of light to transmit data)
1995: Nortel has a ‘proof of concept’ school in the United Kingdom that runs packets over electricity transmission lines

11. DARPANET (WAN)
DARPANET, Interface Message Processors (later know as routers), and TCP/IP were invented
First attempt at data networking

12. Evolution of the Internet Itself
1969: First IP packet sent
1969: ArpaNET commissioned by US DOD
1973: England and Norway Join
1981: BITNET emerges at CUNY
1983: Domain Names were invented
1986: NSFNet created

13. Evolution of the Internet Itself
1990: First web server online
1991: Commercial Access
1993: Mosaic hits WWW
1994: Yahoo arrives
1994: NREN established
1995: eBay, Amazon and Craigslist
1995: Commercial ‘Ownership’
1995: August 9 – Netscape IPO
1996: Governmental Control Issues Emerge

14. Evolution of the Internet Itself
1996: Intranets Emerge
1996/1997: Extranets Appear
1997: Birth of Internet2
Back to its roots
Research Institutions Pulling Out
1998: Google’s IPO
2000: Dot Com Fiasco
2001: First Wikipedia entry
2003: Friendster
2004: Web 2.0

15. The PC Revolution Microsoft was founded in 1975
“A PC on every desk and in every home”
The proliferation of PCs gave the world an access device
Now it is a matter of connecting them

16. Novell The company that brought the world Novell Netware
Local Area Networks were born

17. Telecom
Deregulation and new forms of competition has changed the industry significantly
Convergence is finally starting in earnest
Telephone
Mobile Phone
Television
Internet Access