akamai yesterday - what in the world was that

Thu Jan 23 22:32:39 UTC 2020

On January 23, 2020 at 19:52 paul at nashnetworks.ca (Paul Nash) wrote:
 > > While it makes me feel old, it’s also something that I marvel about periodically.
 > 
 > A bit of perspective on bandwidth and feeling old.  The first non-academic connection from Africa (Usenet and Email, pre-Internet) ran at about 9600 bps over a Telebit Trailblazer in my living room.
 > 
 > The first non-academic IP connection was a satellite connection (64Kbps IIRC, not in my living room :-)).

Someone asked about Antarctica recently.

I remember the day in the 80s when they, I'm pretty sure McMurdo
Station, got its first "internet" connection. It was announced on
lists like this one.

It was a satellite which was good for only so many minutes per day as
it flew in and out of sight and exchanged batched email etc via Kermit
at probably around 9600bps if that, probably variable depending on
conditions.

If I may...which also reminds me of a project in Africa which used
some sort of wireless link (probably packet-radio) on top of buses.

People with the right equipment could get a batch exchange as a bus
drove by. I'm pretty certain that really was implemented and used.

No idea what the bandwidth was, I think packet-radio in that era
generally was glad to achieve around 1200bps.

Moral: Really, really, bad connectivity is a zillion times better than
no connectivity.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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