From: ray@ESPRESSO.BOEING.COM (Ray Allis 5-3583)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Subject: Re: Internal/External
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:17:11 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

[ Ray Allis 921118.1310
  Over in one of the worlds next door, they were discussing "social
  construction" and associated topics . . . ]

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From SHOTHC-L@SIVM.SI.EDU Tue Nov 17 22:22:11 1992
Date:         Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:37:38 -0500
Reply-To: History of Computing Issues <SHOTHC-L@SIVM.SI.EDU>
From: "janet e abbate" <@relay1.UU.NET:abbate@world.std.com>
Subject:      Re:  Internal/External
To: Multiple recipients of list SHOTHC-L <SHOTHC-L@SIVM.SI.EDU>
Content-Length: 2898

Paul Ceruzzi asks for elaboration on competing constructions of networks by
telephone and computer people. This phenomenon is as old as networks
themselves. Some of the earliest theoretical work on networking was done
by Paul Baran of RAND (researched early 1960s, published 1964 under the title
"On Distributed Communications.") When Baran had worked out his model of
a digital communications network he went around to various people in
the computer and communications industries to get their feedback. When he
got to Bell Labs he was met with incredulity by the analog communications
engineers, who were unable to believe that a reliable network could be
created using digital switching (even though digital engineers at Bell Labs
found Baran's ideas plausible). Engineers whose sense of what was
possible was formed by experience in the analog world had a hard time
putting their faith in ideas from the digital world, such as the idea that
digital transmissions could be self-correcting. (This is not to imply that
the analog engineers were somehow deficient. Their grasp of the needs and
realities of telephone communications in general and AT&T in particular
was probably acute). Baran's network was never built, apparently due to
infighting among RANDS's Defense Department clients over who would get to
build it.

The most obvious conflicts between telephone and computer people occur
in the area of standardization. International networking standards are
set by the CCITT, which is dominated by telecoms carriers. They tend
to come up with standards that seem perfectly reasonable to telephone
people but leave computer people perplexed and angry. I think the problem
boils down to the two sides starting out with different assumptions about
what is needed, leading to different constructions of what a "workable"
standard is. For instance: telephone engineers expect steady, low-bandwidth
traffic, while computer engineers expect the network to have to handle
bursts of high-volume traffic. Telephone people think in terms of a
continuous connection between two parties, whereas computer people see
the transfer of data in discrete chunks as a desirable alternative. Etc.
The result was that different systems were built by PTTs and computer
people, and standardization is far from being achieved despite the
existence of official "standards". (This topic is a large chunk of my
dissertation; I can send you more details if you're interested.)

To get back to your original point: in order to understand what's going on
in this situation, I needed to look at _both_ the disputed technical details
of the networks (to see what effect these would have on the functioning
of the network) and the larger social/cultural situation (to understand
why factors such as being a monopoly carrier or having concerns about
data privacy might affect one's evaluation of the technology).

Janet Abbate


----- End Included Message -----