WEBVTT - The Origins of Earthlink 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.160 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.560 and I love all things tech and I thought today 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.520 we could talk about a tech company that has its 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:29.920 headquarters in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, though that's not 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.120 where our story will begin. And it's a company that, 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.360 for the first few years of its existence, made customers 0:00:36.640 --> 0:01:00.200 get cozy with the following sound. Yep, that's the sound 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.160 of a dial up modem making a connection with another modem. 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.640 And the company is earth Link, which is very much 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.920 an active company today, though that might surprise some of 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.120 you who might think that it had its heyday and 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:17.200 then just faded into obscurity. Nope, it's still here. I 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.280 passed the building sometimes here in Atlanta. So we're going 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.800 to learn about the history of earth Link, what the 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.320 company does, and we're gonna learn a bit about how 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:27.960 the Internet works and dial up modems as well, because heck, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.080 this is tech stuff. Also because we're covering so much stuff, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.480 we're looking at a couple of episodes here, my favorite, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.320 but to tell the story of earth Link will also 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.240 have to dive into a lot of other stuff to 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.920 to really understand what's going on. So we're going to have, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.120 like I said, a refresher on how the Internet works 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.120 from a structural standpoint. I'm not going to get into 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.960 protocols or any of that, but more of a high 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.960 level look at how the Internet works. And we're going 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.520 to understand what Internet service providers do and why they're 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.920 a necessity for the vast majority of us. And we'll 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.840 also learn about a company that competed with earth Link 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.760 early on and why that company is the reason that 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.840 earth Link has its HQ in Atlanta. So this might take, 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:13.240 you know, like I said, a couple of episodes to 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.040 cover everything, but it's a great way to learn about 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.040 the Internet in general and the gradual shift to broadband 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.840 methods of connecting to the Internet. Now, our story begins 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:27.720 in the nineteen seventies with a fellow named Sky Dylan Dayton. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.440 I was going to make a Sky is the Limit 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:34.160 joke here, but if you do even a cursory Internet 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.120 search for Sky Dayton and that's d A Y T 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.880 O N, you will see that I have been beaten 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.440 by the punch by hang on. Let me check my notes. Um, yeah, 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.119 looks like everybody, So I'm gonna spare you and Mr 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:52.640 Dayton the hacky pun this time. Dayton was born in 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:57.040 nineteen seventy one in New York City. His family relocated 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.120 to Los Angeles when he was a bebe and his 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.000 parents were both artists. His father, Wendell Dayton, was a 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.640 sculptor and his mother, Alice DeWitt, was a musician poet. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.840 Alice's father, David DeWitt, was an IBM fellow and appointed 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.520 position with an IBM that marks distinguished achievement at the company. 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:23.480 And so now we begin our tale. Sky's parents relocated 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.359 from New York to Los Angeles in nineteen seventy two, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.760 and they would divorce in nineteen seventy five, and they 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:34.120 shared custody of young Sky. Wendell Dayton took on jobs 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.520 as a carpenter to earn money for Sky's education. And 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.520 side note, Wendell's story is actually a pretty incredible one. 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.040 He made really interesting sculptures that were reflective of his 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.160 time in New York City. They kind of grew out 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.680 of artistic movements that were prevalent in New York City 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:55.400 in the seventies. And late sixties, but that unfortunately meant 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.160 that they didn't really mesh with the artistic movements that 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.560 were prevalent in Los Angeles. There was a different kind 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:06.680 of artistic philosophy in that part of the country. In addition, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.400 Wendell really hated submitting his art to galleries. He was 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.200 reluctant to do it. It caused him a lot of anxiety, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.680 so he largely went unrecognized for his work until he 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.680 got a big break in when he was eighty years 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.520 old and a gallery held an exhibit that showed off 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.719 his work from like six decades of his sculpture. He 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.200 passed away in twenty nineteen. I can't find much information 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.520 about Alice DeWitt, which really is a shame. I find 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.599 references to her being a poet and a dancer in 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.080 addition to being a musician, but it's hard to track 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.479 down specifics, and it's quite possible that I'm just looking 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.000 in the wrong places. But I find it's sad that 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.400 I can't find out much about her as opposed to 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.240 finding full articles about Wendel. As for David DeWitt, it's 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.920 important to note this is not the same David DeWitt 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.560 who is a pioneer with database technology Ease and is 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.520 a technical fellow with Microsoft. The David DeWitt and Sky's 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.880 family became an IBM fellow in nineteen seventy, and that 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.760 timeline just doesn't work out with the Microsoft technical fellow 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.479 David DeWitt, who got his PhD in the mid seventies. 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.240 I can't find much more information about David DeWitt, but 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.200 I know that Sky Dayton has written about visiting his 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.240 grandfather's office in Palo Alto, California as a child and 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.640 being introduced to technology around that time. Not long after 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.719 that visit with his grandfather, Sky got his first computer, 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.520 which was a Sinclair z X eight e one. These 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.320 computers came from Dundee, Scotland, and they were made by 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.640 time X, the watch company. Sky was nine years old 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.000 at the time, so that puts the set around nineteen 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.000 eighty and honestly, I'm kind of shocked that that was 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.440 his first computer. I would have pegged it as an 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.960 Apple too, being out of California in the early eighties, 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.120 that would have been the right kind of timing that 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.080 to be the first computer, especially since the Sinclair computers 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.839 were not nearly as well known here in the States 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.080 as they were in Europe. Anyway, back to our story. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.800 At some point in his childhood, Sky's parents enrolled him 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.280 in the Delphian School, which is a private boarding school 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:21.560 in Oregon. The school covers grades kindergarten through twelve, and 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.760 they had fewer than three hundred students, so the students 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.520 would actually live at the school and go to school 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.880 and stay there. And the school doesn't follow the same 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.560 sort of curricula and structure as public schools in the 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.760 United States. From what I understand, it seems like students 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.440 really stay on a subject until they have shown an 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.520 understanding and mastery of that subject, rather than having to 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.280 move on at a set time. So, for example, if 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.479 you were particularly strong in the field of algebra, you 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.960 might complete that course before a school year is up 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.880 and then move on to the next course in mathematics 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.640 or flip wise, if you found it particularly challenging, you 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.800 might just stick with algebra a little bit longer in 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.600 order to reach that level of understanding. There wasn't like 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.400 at this arbitrary date you must move on or be 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.160 held back. Sky Dayton graduated from the Delphian School in 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.240 nine and rather than apply to college, he decided to 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:30.120 strike out into business, and one early entrepreneurial endeavor was 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.200 a coffee shop and art gallery that he co founded 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.680 with a friend. The name of the shop was Cafe Mocha. 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.000 In nineteen two, Dayton would co found another business with 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.160 a friend, a different friend, and this business was a 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.320 design company that created graphics and layouts for advertising campaigns, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.680 and it was called Dayton Slash Walker Design. But something 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:57.600 else was starting to consume Sky's attention. See Sky wanted 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.680 to connect to the Internet. In the nineteen eighties, there 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.520 was a growing culture of bulletin board systems or bbs is. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.280 And this is not Internet, but it's similar, And here's 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.400 how they would work. Someone would set up a computer 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.560 to act as a bulletin board, to host the bulletin board, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.800 and it was kind of like a web server, except 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.760 this approach had a computer standing as its own little island, 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.600 and it would host stuff like message boards and maybe 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.720 some files. And the bbs would have a specific phone 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.240 number associated with it, or maybe a small bank of 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.920 phone numbers, and that would allow people to dial directly 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.280 into the computer. So there are no other connections here. 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.840 It's computer to computer connections. And computer owners with a 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.040 dial up modem would use their modem to call the 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.000 BBS number. I'll get into the process of what happens 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.480 with dial up modems a little bit later in this episode, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.640 but essentially what happens is that the user and the 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.320 BBS computer connect to each other and then they can 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.520 interact with the actual stuff that's on the BBS. By 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.120 the early nine nineties, we were starting to see this 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:07.240 transition into actual Internet services. The Internet had already been 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.680 a thing for a while, but only a small percentage 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.360 of folks in the general population even knew about it. 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.640 It was largely the domain no pun intended of academia 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.080 and some research facilities, and then a few government divisions, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.880 particularly the military. And keep in mind that is when 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.960 Tim berners Lee would really start working on the earliest 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:34.280 web pages. Is typically when people say that he built 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:38.160 the first one. So this is really pre Worldwide Web 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.720 that hadn't really taken off yet. Rather than connect to 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.280 the Worldwide Web, people were using the Internet to do 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:48.480 stuff like send emails or use FTP as in File 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.839 Transfer Protocol, or maybe use tell net, which is a 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.319 way to create a virtual terminal connection between multiple machines 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.080 for the purposes of text based communication. The main method 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.080 of connecting to theseervices was through dial up modems, but 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.720 the process of connecting wasn't always a smooth one. The 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:12.040 early online service providers and Internet service providers were essentially 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.360 working out the bugs in the system, and it often 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.560 meant that it could take a long time to connect, 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.640 or connections would drop, or sometimes you would lose stuff 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.120 in mid transfer. Online service providers like America Online, Prodigy, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.600 and compu Serve would allow users to access a suite 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.599 of services and features that were contained within those services, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.160 but they had little or sometimes no access to the 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.840 Internet at large, So it's more like logging into a 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.400 glorified bulletin board system, a big one, but one that 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.160 still had barriers, and it usually meant that if you 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.800 were a customer of one and your buddy was a 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.840 customer of another one, you couldn't send messages to each 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.079 other because you were confined by the barriers of that service. 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.000 Internet service providers, which gave access to the Internet at 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.600 large were not that common yet. Then there was the 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.719 world widely recognized as the first commercial I s P. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.720 Not universally recognized as such, but there are a lot 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.000 of people who argue it was and that launched in 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.080 There were a couple of others, but they were pretty 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.720 limited and Sky Dayton found the experience of connecting to 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.000 the Internet really irritating, and to make matters worse, the 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.679 company he was using didn't have a good customer service department. 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.760 This kind of got the wheels turning in Sky's head. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.440 Right around nine, he started thinking about launching his own 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.760 Internet service provider company, and he wanted to have more 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.679 of a focus on customer service. I think it's pretty 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.000 obvious to say that creating an I s P is 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.720 not a small endeavor. It's a big, big challenge. So 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.080 Dayton sought out investors to help fund his venture, and 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.240 he secured one thousand dollars from a pair of them, 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.600 Kevin O'Donnell and Read Slatkin, in the process. O'Donnell still 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:05.359 heads major investment initiatives to this day, working with Adam Street. Slatkin, 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.720 who passed away in became infamous for running one of 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.840 the largest Ponzi schemes in history. Now, if you are 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.679 not familiar with that term, a Ponzi scheme is a 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.240 way of perpetuating a cycle of investments that is in 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.280 the long run unsustainable, And I'll give you a very 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:27.240 high level rundown on how it works. So let's say 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.120 you're running an investment fund and you raise one thousand 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.200 dollars from an initial round of investors using some sort 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.280 of scheme. Doesn't matter what the scheme is, doesn't matter 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.720 what you're telling people they're investing in. Maybe you've told 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.439 everyone you're gonna sell marching band equipment to small towns 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.320 in the Midwest. But you've got your initial investment of 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.719 one hundred thousand dollars and you start living high off 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.520 the hog. You're spending money, but investors expect a return 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.600 on the investments they put in, meaning you now have 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.800 an obligation to try and not just pay them back, 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.560 but pay them back on top of their investment to 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.720 give them a profit, or at least make a payment 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.640 to those investors. Except your whole scheme is faulty, either 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.480 on purpose or just by circumstance. So instead you hold 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.600 a second round of investments. Let's say this time you're 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.120 asking for two hundred thousand dollars, and you use some 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.079 of that two dollars to pay off at least part 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.400 of your first round of investors to kind of get 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.720 them off your back. Meanwhile, you keep living high on 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.400 the hog. You're still spending lots of money. But hey, 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.280 now you owe money to that second round of investors, 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.320 and potentially you still owe some money to the first round. 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.320 So then you hold another round of investment, this time 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.320 maybe for a million dollars, and so on and so forth. 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.240 And as you see, the scheme tends to get bigger 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.640 over time, and eventually you hit a point where you're 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:54.760 just not going to be able to keep up with it, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.199 and it all comes crashing down. Now. To really learn 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.000 about this scheme and why it's called a Ponzi scheme, 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.920 I highly recommend you check out a classic Stuff you 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:10.560 Should Know episode titled How Ponzi Schemes Work. It published 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.839 originally way back in two thousand nine. It is a 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.480 fantastic episode. Slatkin was running one of the biggest Ponzi 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.200 schemes in history, and many of his victims were celebrities. 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.520 Slatkin was also a member of the Church of Scientology, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.080 with more than a few of his marks his targets 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.120 also being fellow members. But hey, members of Scientology were 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.880 used to handing over enormous amounts of cash to someone else. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.400 Not to learn more about that, I recommend checking out 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:47.960 the podcast Scientology Fair Game. It's incredibly well done and 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.280 also just a trigger warning, has a lot of really 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:56.120 upsetting stuff in it. Slatkin had been part of Scientology 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.960 since the nineteen seventies, so in retrospect, slat kins involvement 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.720 with the early days of earth Link is kind of 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.440 a shameful past sort of thing, though I suspect at 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.760 the time no one really knew about this particular m 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.920 O of his. He wasn't found out and prosecuted by 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.080 the U S Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC until 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.800 two thousand one, and whether earned honestly or through deception, 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.840 slat can put forward some of the seed money that 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:30.240 Dayton needed to get things moving. Dayton would start earth 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.640 Link in California. Now. According to Wired, the company initially 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.640 offered connections to the Internet at large through one of 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:42.560 its ten modems. That's one zero, That's all he had. 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.400 This was inherently different from online service providers like Prodigy 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.440 or a o L which, again we're mostly confining you 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.280 to the OSPs own self contained network. One of the 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.000 big limitations of those OSPs, as I mentioned, is that 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.960 you couldn't communicate between two of them to Typically there 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.040 were some that would make arrangements with one another, but 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.640 it meant that they had limited utility unless everyone you 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.000 knew happened to be on the same osp The Internet 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.640 really offered up a new opportunity to connect people and 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:18.040 services no matter what network they were on, assuming that 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.360 network was in turn connected to the Internet itself and 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.920 wasn't restricting access. That promise of the Internet, that ability 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:31.000 to connect to practically limitless people and services, would become 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.360 a driving force for development in the nineteen nineties. It 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.239 got a big boost starting in nine with the introduction 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.560 of the Mosaic browser and the early days of the 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:47.120 Worldwide Web, and so earth Link launched in nineteen, along 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.320 with a few other competing I s p s, some 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:51.960 of which came out before earth Link, some that came 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.800 out around the same time, a couple that followed immediately after, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.680 and then after that there was an explosion. Among those 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:03.440 was another important I sp in our story called mind Spring. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.320 When we come back, I'm going to cover some early 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.439 Internet history and the roles of I s p s 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.119 in those early days, so that we get an understanding 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.840 of what exactly the business here was. But first let's 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:26.080 take a quick break. All right, we need to get 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.480 an understanding of how the Internet works to grasp why 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.560 Internet service providers are even a thing. I mean, after all, 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.240 shouldn't you just be able to connect right to the 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.840 Internet and just skip that whole I s P. Thing. Well, 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.000 let's get it sorted. But let me give you a warning. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.200 There are actually a lot of different ways to describe 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.400 how the Internet works, even if you're doing it from 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.960 a very high level. So this is just one way 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:57.640 to describe the relationship of various uh entities that are 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.959 part of the Internet. So the first thing we need 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.160 to establish is that the Internet is a network of networks. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:08.480 They are frequently referred to as autonomous systems or a 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:14.080 s S. So network and autonomous system are essentially synonymous. 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.520 So network is really a bunch of interconnected devices that 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:22.200 can communicate with one another, either directly and dedicated lines 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.520 of communication or through various communication hubs. So you've got 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.640 your computers, some of which your servers, some of which 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.359 our clients. You've got your physical lines of communication. Because 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.160 we're gonna skip over things like WiFi for right now, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.000 and you've got your switches and your routers that make 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.200 sure that the proper connections form between machines. So when 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.840 someone on computer A sends something to someone on computer B, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.359 the switches and routers make sure that the data from 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.840 A goes to be and not to say computer F 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.040 or every computer on the system. You can have a 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.000 network like this be completely self contained. It does not 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.600 have to be part of the Internet, but you could 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.120 connected to other networks like you could have these networks 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:15.360 then connect to multiple other networks. However, as new networks 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.160 join up and established connections to yet more networks, things 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.320 start getting exponentially more complicated. If you are starting up 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.639 a brand new computer network, establishing a direct line of 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.919 communication with every other computer network that exists would be 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.360 practically impossible, right. I mean, maybe in the very early 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.840 days of the commercial Internet you can manage this if 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.360 you had enough resources, but today it would be almost 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:45.399 impossible to do. Over time, we saw the development of 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.720 what we would call the Internet backbone. Now, this describes 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.320 a sort of nexus of data routes. All the physical cables, 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:57.320 the switches, the routers through which data can travel to 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.520 get from one network to another. The early origins of 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:03.920 the backbone date to the days when the Internet was 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.400 almost exclusively the domain of the academic world. The National 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.080 Science Foundation in the United States a k a. The 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.720 n s F was instrumental in creating a major foundation 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.959 for this backbone. Until nine, all of the data traveling 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:26.000 across the NSF net was from universities and research facilities. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.199 There was no commercial connection to the Internet over the 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:34.680 nsfuh net at this point. And here's where things really 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:39.400 got complicated. See, the n s F net was one network, 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.399 but telecommunications companies were starting to build out their own networks, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:48.640 including those physical connections that link networks together. First they 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.600 did so internally so that you had like the A, 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.000 T and T internal network, and then later they started 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.240 to connect with each other so that they could do 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:02.800 data exchanges. NSF net agreed to carry commercial traffic across 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:07.359 its network connections to deliver to other networks. So it 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.800 was acting as a conduit which would allow customers of 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:15.040 network one communicate and send files or received files from 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.000 people using you know, network number two. And it was 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:23.399 the birthplace of the Internet backbone. The big telecommunications companies 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.320 building out their own miles of cable with switches and 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.640 routers were creating kind of their own backbones, but these 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.639 would become interconnected with the infrastructure of n s F 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:37.040 net and other big companies and thus making the backbone 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.439 more robust. You can think of it as just a 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.640 bunch of cables all twisting together to form an extra 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.680 thick cable and there was a clear benefit to interconnecting 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:48.879 these networks with one another, but there was also the 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:53.520 question of how would these interconnections work From a business perspective. 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.720 Building out infrastructure costs a lot of money, and those 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.479 components have limitations on how much data they can handle 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.560 at one time, as well as how an increasingly large 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:09.679 demand for services can cause congestion through a network. So 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.199 there were questions about how networks would handle the exchange 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:17.560 of data between one network and another. And we historically 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.639 describe these networks that connect to one another in the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:25.639 form of tiers. That's t I, E R. So a 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:30.920 Tier one network is really large, typically a global reach 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.119 network that's interconnected, and it serves as part of the 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.840 key components of the Internet backbone. Just so you know, 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.000 the definitions for the different tiers are a little bit 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.159 loosey goosey, But essentially, a Tier one network does not 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.000 have to pay for the privilege of sending data to 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:53.439 or receiving data from other networks. It's called peering. A 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:58.120 Tier two network has to pay for some transit privileges. 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.520 In other words, it has to pay some other networks 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:05.000 for the privilege of being able to transfer data between 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.239 the two, but it has agreements in place with a 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:10.800 lot of other networks where it's the same sort of 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.000 thing of peering, where it doesn't have to make those 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:17.320 those transit payments. Then you have Tier three networks which 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.119 do not have that level of cloud they have to 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.879 pay those transit fees. So let's say you've got a 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:27.760 tier one network like a T and T. A T 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.560 and T S network consists of millions and millions and 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:36.760 millions of devices, including web servers, network switches, cables, traffic routers. 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:40.200 This network is really huge. And if you've got two 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:43.119 computers that are on the A T and T network, 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:47.600 and all the connections between those two computers are essentially 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:49.680 on a T and T S network, then you've got 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.480 an intra network connection going on. Doesn't matter if they're 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.080 across the country from each other. If it's on that 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:57.520 one network, the data never actually has to leave the 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.320 provenance of a T and T in theory anyway. But 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:02.359 let's say that you're on a device that connects to 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:04.199 a T and T S network and you want to 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:08.120 connect to a server that's on a different Tier one network, 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:13.240 like one that's on Lumen Technologies network. Any data exchange 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:15.960 is going to have to pass from one network to another. 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:19.240 So if you think of network connections like private roads, 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.920 you're talking about going from one private community into another 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:26.080 private community. But there's a lot of traffic that goes 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:30.200 back and forth between these two huge entities, and figuring 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:32.760 out how to charge for that would be a nightmare, 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:36.920 particularly since you could see big shifts in the direction 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:39.680