История телекома

Продолжение следует...

А знаете, что самое интересное в этой истории? Да, Bell и AT&T были абсолютными монополистами. Но монополистами в области, которую сами и создали! Наш Связьинвест пришел на готовенькое...

Erlang, этот по-круче будет 8-)

для понимающих английский

Aronsson's Telecom History Timeline

We don't want people to be attracted by old things.
We want them to like the new ones.
-- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932

Just ten years ago the issues were so simple,
the arguments so clean.
-- Daniel Brandt, Cyberspace Wars, 1993

On this page: Telecom Timeline, Telecom History Links.

by Lars Aronsson, lars@aronsson.se

This telecom history timeline has not been updated after September 2001. The reason is that its format is uncomfortable. It started out as a single web page and grew substantially during the spring of 2001. While searching for a better way to organize the timeline, I discovered and started to explore a technology known as wiki, a kind of website where anybody is allowed to update the contents directly from the browser, most successfully demonstrated by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In the fall of 2001 I also started my own wiki website in Swedish, called susning.nu. The wiki concept in itself does not address the issues of timelines, but Wikipedia and susning.nu have shown two different ways to present information related to time. Wikipedia uses separate, manually updated pages for dates and years, such as the year 1876 or the date July 14. As a contrast, Susning.nu automatically recognizes dates and years that appear in the text, presenting them as clickable links to a date search function that yields a limited timeline of other events that surround the first date. My own implementation for susning.nu still requires some development and improvement, but is already the basis for a Telecom History Timeline wiki. That wiki will be updated, and you can help, but this webpage will not. Information from this page should instead be copied to the wiki.

Old preface follows.

This started out as a timeline for the history of telecommunication, but has grown to include most of information processing, computing, media, electricity, science, and transportation. There is a natural focus on the Nordic countries. Suggested reading is indicated with bullets in the list.

The timeline is a list of individual, verifiable events (points in time). General trends, failures, and silent ideas are not recorded. Useful events include patents granted, public announcements, finalized company mergers, and networks going into service. Under each year, I first list all events with unknown dates, then a chronological list of dated events.

The information presented here may be incomplete or incorrect. Please help me to put more exact dates on listed events. Send your comments and suggestions by e-mail to lars@aronsson.se

2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1993 1991 1988 1984 1978 1970 1960 1945 1925 1900 1870 1820 1750 1670 1550 1400 1200

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2001
¶ September 3, Hewlett-Packard announces it will acquire Compaq in a $25 billion deal.
¶ August 16, handheld computer maker Palm announces they are acquiring the technology assets and intellectual property of software maker Be for $11 million in stock.
¶ July 17, Radio Sweden International discontinues its program Mediascan after 53 years. The weekly program, originally called Sweden Calling DX-ers or SCDX, was started by Arne Skoog (1913-1999) in February 1948.
¶ July 16, visiting Las Vegas, Nevada to present his paper at DefCon, 26-year old Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, an employee of Elcomsoft, is arrested by the FBI after Adobe brought allegations that Sklyarov had circumvented the company's e-book copy protection mechanisms (a simple ROT-13 substitution), supposedly a crime against the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The hacker community at EFF and Slashdot is outraged, and websites are soon created to free Sklyarov, free Dmitry and boycott Adobe, even anti-DMCA. The EFF meets Adobe and on July 23, the company pulls back its allegations, but the FBI doesn't release the accused so easy. Sklyarov was released on bail on August 6.
¶ July 11, Denying a preliminary injunction to Random House Inc. (in the case vs. Rosetta Books), Judge Sidney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York says that so-called "e-books" do not fall within the company's exclusive rights to publish written works.
¶ July 5, Marconi (formerly GEC) share prices drop 54 percent in one day after an unexpected profit warning. In the last four years, the new management had been aggressively selling and acquiring various companies, perhaps a little too fast. (Hope this won't affect the centenary celebrations.)
¶ July 2, new models of the Intel Pentium 4 processor operate at 1600 and 1800 MHz. (cf November 20, 2000)
¶ June 28, The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the lower court's ruling that Microsoft must be split up (cf June 7, 2000).
¶ June 25, Compaq announces that its Alpha processor technology (developed by Digital Equipment Corporation before its merger with Compaq) will be made available to Intel, and that future Compaq servers will be based on the Intel Itanium processor.
¶ June 21, Forbes listing of the world's richest people has (1) Bill Gates, Microsoft $58 billion, (2) Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway $32 billion, (3) Paul Allen, Microsoft $30 billion, and (4) Larry Ellison, Oracle $26 billion.
¶ June 14, first rumors that Ericsson's plans to reduce staff from c. 105,000 down to 90,000 people might have to continue down to 70,000. Less than 6 months ago, Ericsson's job ads bragged about the company's size "more than 100,000 employees in over 150 countries".
¶ June 12, Nokia shares fall more than 20 % in one day, as CEO Jorma Ollila warns that this year's sales of cell phones (handsets) will just barely beat last years sales, rather than the rapid growth of the last few years.
¶ May, the annual survey of Sweden's 500 biggest IT companies published by the weekly magazine Veckans Affдrer lists (1) Ericsson with an annual turnover of SEK 273 billion, (2) Telia SEK 54 billion, and (3) WM-data SEK 13 billion (SEK 10 = US$1).
¶ May, an article by the father of the World Wide Web,
Tim Berners-Lee, "The Semantic Web. A new form of Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities", published in Scientific American, May, 2001, available online
¶ April 25, Sun Microsystems unveils project JXTA (announcement), an open-source project that will provide a basic framework for building peer-to-peer applications.
¶ April 16, America Online membership surpasses 29 million worldwide.
¶ April, Compaq is awarded three supercomputer wins in Japan and Australia.
¶ In March and April, Ericsson announces staff cuts of 12,000 (11 % of staff). Most of the telecom giant's problems are attributed to poor sales of handsets, which all agree are not as good as the main competitor Nokia's. Manufacturing of handsets is outsourced to Flextronics. But Nokia is also gaining market shares in mobile systems (GSM and UMTS base stations), where the company's cash surplus helps finance customer deals. Still no mentioning of UMTS as a system failure.
¶ March 22-28, the CeBIT exhibition in Hanover, Germany attracts 8.106 exhibitors and 830,000 visitors.
¶ March 21, Transatlantic cable TAT-14 is installed. Commercial service begins on May 10. The cable system is a dual, bi-directional ring configuration using DWDM multiplexing (dense wavelength-division multiplex) with 16 wavelengths of STM-64 per fiber pair. It carries 640 Gbps, corresponding to 7.7 million telephone circuits, of which 80 percent will be used for Internet traffic. The 15,000 kilometers of cable connecting Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands with the United States is owned by a consortium of 50 members, including AT&T, British Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, and France Telecom. Main contractor is KDD/SCS of Japan.
¶ March, Compaq provides the key infrastructure to Microsoft Technology Center in Silicon Valley.
¶ March, Compaq achieves No. 1 in Overall Market Revenue according to IDC High Performance Technical Computer Qview report.
¶ March 2, Napster lawyer offers to install software over the weekend to stop trading copywritten songs, but the measure seems to have little effect.
¶ February 12, Napster is ordered by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block copying copyrighted songs.
¶ February 9, a ship anchor cuts the China-US Cable Network cable in the waters off Chongming, China, causing a temporary break in Internet connectivity between Asia and America.
¶ February 8, Global Crossing opens a new optic fiber ring network connecting Copenhagen, Malmц, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Oslo, a distance of 2150 km. It carries 10 Gbps.
¶ February (?), Cisco announces to cut staff by one third.
¶ February, Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC, MP2800 Projector, and Compaq biometrics card all win top honors at the 2001 Mobility Awards.
¶ February, Compaq donates $1.5 million to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to create new Internet safety project - the NetSmartz Workshop.
¶ January 30, introduction of the Intel Ultra Low Voltage Mobile Pentium III processor, operating at 500 MHz (1.1 volt, less than 1 watt) or 300 MHz battery-optimized mode (less than 1 volt, less than 0.5 watt), intended for use in business and consumer mobile PCs. An ultra low power celeron processor is also introduced.
¶ January 11, America Online and Time Warner complete merger.
¶ January 10, Global Crossing completes the sale of GlobalCenter to Exodus.
¶ January, introduction of the Apple PowerBook G4 ("Titanium"), the nicest looking full-size portable of the time, weight 5.3 lbs, having a 400/500 MHz PowerPC 7410 CPU, 64 bit datapath, 1 MB ROM, RAM expandable to 1 GB, no floppy, built-in 10-30 GB hard disk, built-in 6-speed slot-load DVD-ROM, 15.3" active matrix TFT 24 bit (true color) 1152x768 display, 16 bit stereo sound, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, built-in 56 kbps modem, prepared for wireless LAN (built-in antenna, optional card). Priced from $2599 up.
¶ January, Compaq and Yahoo! announce comprehensive global technology and marketing alliance.
¶ January, Compaq and Microsoft provide wireless network for delegates at the World Economic Forum's Davos annual meeting.
¶ January, a new book on open source development, based on the authors previous online writings,
Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral & the Bazaar. Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, O'Reilly & Associates, January 2001, ISBN 0-596-00131-2

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2000
¶ America Online (AOL) merges with Time Warner.
¶ ICQ breaks the 85 million member mark.
¶ By the end of the year, 7.1 million U.S. homes and businesses had high speed Internet connections, a 158 percent increase in the last year. Of these, 5.2 million were homes or small businesses, 4.3 million were faster than 200 kbps in both directions (up 118 percent), 3.6 million were cable modems (up 153 percent), 2 million were DSL (up 435 percent).
¶ Motorola merges with General Instrument Corporation, to provide integrated video, voice and data networking for Internet and high-speed data services.
¶ November 20, introduction of the Intel Pentium-4 processor, operating at 1400 or 1500 MHz, fabricated in Intel's 0.18 micron CMOS process, die size is 217 mmІ, power consumption is 50W, delivering delivers 535 SPECint2000 and 558 SPECfp2000 of performance. The only faster general-purpose microprocessor is Compaq/Digital Alpha 21264B CPU (cf June 25, 2001) delivering 544 SPECint2000 and 658 SPECfp2000 at 833 MHz. The previous Intel chip, Pentium-III "Coppermine", had 442 SPECint2000 and 335 SPECfp2000 results at 1GHz.
¶ November 15, opening of the Southern Cross cable, connecting Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and the U.S. west coast, a distance of 30,500 km. It carries 120 Gbps to Australia and 160 Gbps from Hawaii to California. The last cable segment from Hawaii to California went into operation on February 28, 2001.
¶ November, completion of the Atlantic Crossing-2 (AC-2) cable by Global Crossing. It has 4 pairs and carries 1.28 Tbps.
¶ November, Compaq and Walt Disney Internet Group announce strategic infrastructure, marketing, and distribution alliance in three-year deal totaling more than $100 million.
¶ November, the PAC cable is installed by Global Crossing between Grover Beach, US; Tijuana, Mexico; Mazatlan, Mexico; Fort Amadour, Panama; Puerto Viejo, Venezuela; St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, a distance of 9,500 km. It carries 2 x 10 Gb/s.
¶ October 31, Napster surprisingly announces a partnership with German recording company Bertelsmann AG (BMG) to develop a membership-based distribution system that would guarantee payments to artists. Bertelsmann drops lawsuit against Napster in exchange for a stake in the business.
¶ October 24, Swedish music e-business Boxman bankrupt. Dozens of smaller dotcom and e-business companies, in Sweden alone, crash or lay off significant parts of their staff from October to February. Most of them are documented on the website kickad.nu. American and international companies are documented by FuckedCompany.com.
¶ October, Compaq forms marketing partnership with San Jose Sharks to create Compaq Center at San Jose.
¶ October 2, Napster case: Appeals court hears oral arguments.
¶ September, Compaq and Commerce One form strategic alliance in B2B e-commerce.
¶ September, Compaq announces a $100 million dollar investment program for life sciences startup companies.
¶ September, Compaq is selected by U.S. Department of Energy to build the world's fastest and most powerful supercomputer.
¶ September, Compaq expands iPAQ line with five new products, including the iPAQ Home Internet Appliance and the iPAQ Personal Audio Player.
¶ September 1, Ten applications competing for a total of four Swedish UMTS licenses are turned in to Post- och Telestyrelsen (PTS) in Stockholm. It is commonly believed that the first three will be awarded to the current GSM operators Telia, Tele2, and Europolitan.
¶ August 30, Lars Aronsson founds Elektrosmog, a Stockholm-based discussion group on public wireless LANs. Around the same time, similar grassroots wireless networking groups pop up in London, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.
¶ August 9, Swedish clothing e-business Dressmart bankrupt.
¶ August 3, the European Union opens an antitrust case against Microsoft for allegedly abusing its market position in computer operating systems software, after Sun Microsystems complained in 1998 to the European Commission that "Microsoft breached EU antitrust rules by engaging in discriminatory licensing and by refusing to supply essential information on its Windows operating system."
¶ In July, the Nupedia project, aiming to create a free-for-all encyclopedia from voluntary contributions, publishes their first articles. Ten months later, only 17 articles have been published, mostly due to the far too strict editorial policies. In the winter 2001, Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger starts a wiki-based alternative, Wikipedia. Creating a free encyclopedia is an old dream, from Vannevar Bush's vision of Memex (1945) and Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu (1960), to Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web (1989) and Ward Cunningham's Portland Pattern Repository (1994).
¶ July 27, Nokia shares lose 20 % of their value in a single day.
¶ July 26, Napster case: judge Patel grants the RIAA's request for a preliminary injunction and orders Napster shut down. The injuction is stayed two days later by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling that "substantial questions" were raised about the merits and form of judge Patel's injunction.
¶ July, Compaq is named the Microsoft Global Services Partner of the Year.
¶ June 29, America Online completes acquisition of Mapquest.Com.
¶ June, Forbes listing of the world's richest people has (1) Bill Gates, Microsoft $60 billion, (2) Larry Ellison, Oracle $47 billion, (3) Paul Allen, Microsoft $28 billion, and (4) Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway $25 billion.
¶ June 19, introduction of the Intel Low Voltage Mobile Celeron processor, operating at 500 MHz, based on a 0.18 Micron process, using a voltage of only 1.35 volts, power consumption is less than 2 watts, intended for use in low-cost mobile PCs. A Low Voltage Mobile Pentium III is also introduced, operating at 600 MHz. (The race for gigahertz clock frequency continues, but there is also a new focus on mobility and low power consumption. This fall everybody is buying a WLAN card for their laptop.)
¶ June, Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC earns first ZDNet "Tech Trendsetter Award" at PC Expo.
¶ June, Compaq Alpha technology enables early completion of mapping the Human Genome by Celera Genomics.
June 7, Judge Jackson (cf April 3) hands down his final judgment, ordering Microsoft to split itself into two separate companies: an operating system company and an applications company. Microsoft immediately appealed.
¶ June 1 through October 31, Expo 2000, held in Hanover, Germany, attracts 18 million visitors.
¶ May 19, Swedish-based clothing e-business Boo.com bankrupt.
¶ May, data services company HavenCo starts operations from the Principality of Sealand (cf 1967).
¶ ... spring ... Telecom, IT, and e-business shares on the Stockholm stock exchange fall dramatically.
¶ May, Compaq and 11 other high-tech industry leaders announce formation of global supply chain trading exchange.
¶ May 5, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel rules that Napster is not entitled to "safe harbor" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
¶ May 3, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and the band's attorney produce list of more than 335,000 Internet user names of people the band says are illegally sharing their songs using Napster.
¶ April 18, the Japan-US Cable Network discovers a cable fault that will delay the project for six months.
¶ April, Compaq and Siebel extend relationship into Global Strategic Alliance.
¶ April, Compaq is ranked No. 1 vendor in Linux server market.
¶ April, Compaq is recognized by President Clinton as leader in bridging the digital divide.
¶ April, Compaq announces broad 10-year corporate alliance with The Walt Disney Company.
¶ April, Compaq unveils iPAQ Pocket PC.
¶ April 13, Heavy metal rock group Metallica sues Napster (cf May 1999) for copyright infringement and racketeering. Rapper Dr. Dre files suit two weeks later.
¶ April 3, Judge Jackson (cf November 1999) concludes that Microsoft maintains its monopoly power by anticompetitive means and attempts to monopolize the Web browser market, both in violation of §2 [of the Sherman Act]. Microsoft also violated §1 of the Sherman Act by unlawfully tying its Web browser to its operating system.
¶ March 13, ScanSoft, based in Peabody, Massachusetts, acquires Caere, maker of Omnipage, a competing small systems software product for optical character recognition (OCR). ScanSoft's OCR products, including OmniPage, TextBridge and PaperPort, are marketed through partnerships with Apple, Brother, Canon, Epson, Fuji, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM/Lotus, Microsoft, Mustek, Primax, Sharp, Symantec Corporation, Visioneer, and Xerox. The only significant competitor in the small systems OCR market is Russian Abbyy's FineReader product.
¶ March, Compaq launches Presario Internet PCs with 1 GHz processors.
¶ in February, stock prices start to plunge for IT and e-business companies. Companies that need their second round of venture capital funding, don't find any capital. This is the beginning of "the dotcom death". The downturn lasts well over a year. Laid-off employees in San Francisco organize "pink slip parties". Computer and network equipment from liquidated dotcom companies is auctioned off, reducing sales of new equipment.
¶ February, Marconi acquires Bosch Public Networks.
¶ February, the Atlantis-2 cable is installed between Las Toninas, Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fortaleza, Brazil; Dakar, Senegal; Praia, Cape Verde Islands; El Medano, Canary Islands, Spain; Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal; Conil, Spain; and Lisbon, Portugal, a distance of 13,000 km. It carries 2 x 20 Gbps.
¶ February, the Columbus-III cable is installed between Holywood, Florida, USA; Ponta Delgada, Azores Islands, Portugal; Lisbon, Portugal; Conil, Spain; Mazara Del Vallo, Sicily, Italy, a distance of 9,900 km. It carries 2 x 20 Gb/s.
¶ February, Compaq acquires assets of Inacom and creates Custom Edge, Inc., providing custom configurations and end-to-end order management capabilities.
¶ February, Compaq Enterprise Storage earns the No. 1 ranking from leading network storage users.
¶ January 11, operations begin on one leg of the China-US Cable Network, the first undersea fiber optic cable network to transfer voice, data, and video traffic directly between the U.S. and China. The network has two landing points in China (Chongming and Shantou), two in the United States (Bandon, Oregon and San Luis Obispo, California), two in Japan, and one in Guam, Korea, and Taiwan. It carries 80 Gbps. The 640 gigabit Pacific Crossing 1, planned for July 1, and the 640 gigabit "Japan-U.S Cable Network", planned for the end of 2000, go only as far as Japan.
¶ January, Compaq is named Consumer PC Market "world leader" by IDC.
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1999
¶ Sun Microsystem makes StarOffice productivity suite available to all, free of charge.
¶ ICQ reaches 40 million members.
¶ IEEE presents the standard 802.11b for wireless LANs (WLAN) of 11 Mbit/s in the license-free ISM band at 2.4 GHz (12 cm wavelength, the resonance frequency of the water molecule, also used in microwave owens). During the summer and fall of 2000 many affordable products appear in the market for office equipment, but WLAN home products soon follow. The same products can be used for constructing point-to-point links aswell. This sparks a wave of grassroots wireless network initiatives. Wireless Internet cafes (and public access installations at airports and hotels) appear in many places. See e.g. elektrosmog.nu and its link list.
¶ America Online surpasses 19 million members, 3 million AOL and CompuServe members internationally, launches AOL Hong Kong and AOL Brazil.
¶ Yahoo! is added to the S&P 500.
¶ Motorola's i1000plus handset is the first to integrate a digital phone, two-way radio and alphanumeric pager with Internet microbrowser, e-mail, fax and two-way messaging capabilities. It uses Motorola's iDEN (cf 1994) integrated digital communications technology.
¶ Global Marine Systems is formed when Cable & Wireless (Marine) Ltd is sold to Global Crossing Inc. It owns and operates the world's largest fleet of cable ships and subsea equipment.
¶ December 7, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sues Napster in federal court in San Francisco alleging copyright infringement.
November 30, GEC (and Marconi Electronic Systems Limited, cf 1998) is renamed to Marconi plc when Marconi is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
¶ November 29, GEC/Marconi sells its Electronics Systems division to British Aerospace.
¶ November 24, at a pressconference, Russian group of companies Elbrus report that in their first year of operation they have developed a SPARC-compatible processor V8 and a workstation based on it, running a localized version of the Solaris operating system.
¶ November, Compaq joins forces with Cable & Wireless to deliver global e-business solutions.
¶ November 5, District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson finds that Microsoft is a monopolist in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Furthermore, Microsoft has used its monopoly power to restrict competition and harm consumers. (cf May 1998, April 2000)
¶ October 25, introduction of the Intel Mobile Pentium III processor, operating at 400, 450, or 500 MHz, having 28 million transistors, based on a 0.18 micron process, 100 or 133 MHz bus, 64 bit bus, intended for use in business and consumer PCs, one and two-way servers and workstations. New and faster non-mobile Pentium processors are also introduced, operating at 500, 533, 550, 600, 650, 667, 700, and 733 MHz.
¶ September, introduction of the Apple iBook, a portable computer designed like the iMac, weight 6.6 lbs, having a 300 MHz PowerPC 750 CPU, 64 bit datapath, 1 MB ROM, 32 MB RAM expandable to 160 MB, no floppy, built-in 56 kbps modem, built-in 3.2 GB hard disk, built-in 24-speed CD-ROM, 12.1" 800x600 color display, AGP-based graphics, 16 bit stereo sound, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, prepared for wireless LAN (built-in antenna, optional card). Priced at $1599.
¶ September 15, introduction of the Intel Mobile Celeron processor, operating at 466 or 433 MHz, having 18.9 million transistors, based on a 0.25 micron process, intended for use in low-cost mobile PCs.
¶ June 14, introduction of the Intel Mobile Pentium II processor, operating at 400 MHz. Two models are made, one based on a 0.25 micron process, the other on a 0.18 micron process. Both having 27.4 million transistors, intended for use in mobile PCs.
¶ June, Compaq forms a strategic partnership with CMGI; CMGI acquires control of Compaq's AltaVista business and its related properties (Shopping.com and Zip2).
¶ June, Compaq unveils the MP1600, its first portable projector, weighing 4.2 pounds, it is claimed the world's smallest projector.
¶ June, Compaq announces the new Aero 8000, a handheld PC.
¶ June 4, Global Crossing announces plans for Africa One, a 39,000 km fiber optic cable system, worth $1.6 billion, to be completed in 2002.
¶ June 1, America Online acquires the Internet music brands Spinner.Com, Winamp and SHOUTcast.
¶ June, BeOS release 4.5.
¶ June, Forbes listing of the world's richest people has (1) Bill Gates, Microsoft $90 billion, (2) Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway $36 billion, (3) Paul Allen, Microsoft $30 billion, and (4) Steve Ballmer, Microsoft $19 billion.
May 21, America Online completes acquisition of MovieFone, Inc.
¶ May, the FAST web search engine is launched, based in Norway. The well-known URL is http://www.alltheweb.com
¶ May, Napster Inc. file-sharing service founded by 18-year-old college dropout Shawn Fanning (Time Magazine article from October 2000) and Sean Parker and explodes in popularity. The central component is an indexing server and software to use it. When files (MP3 music, often ripped from music CDs) are found in the central index, they are copied not via the central server but directly peer-to-peer (P2P). Originally so designed to reduce the need for bandwidth to the central server, in the following legal case against RIAA (cf December 7) and Metallica (cf April 13, 2000), this P2P architecture is important because it keeps Napster Inc. out of the actual (pirate?) copying. Still, Napster puts everybody's focus on the technical benefits of P2P, resulting in O'Reilly books and developer conferences and Sun's project JXTA (cf April 25, 2001).
¶ April 5, America Online acquires When.com
¶ March 17, America Online completes acquisition of Netscape Communications Corporation.
¶ March 17, introduction of the Intel Pentium III Xeon processor, operating at 500 and 550 MHz, having 9.5 million transistors, based on a 0.25 micron process, 100 MHz bus, 64 bit bus, intended for use in business PCs, two-, four- and eight-way (and higher) servers and workstations.
¶ March 1, GEC acquires the US telecommunication network products company RELTEC.
¶ March, the SEA-ME-WE 3 (South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3) cable is installed, passing 34 countries at 40 landing points from Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean, India, Indonesia, Australia to Japan, for a total length of 39,000 km. It carries 20 Gbps via 4-way WDM (wavelength-division multiplex) on 2 pairs.
¶ March, India announces its new Telecom Policy which opens domestic long distance telephony and changes the licence fee regime.
¶ March, Compaq acquires Shopping.com, which becomes an operating division of AltaVista.
¶ February 26, introduction of the Intel Pentium III processor, operating at 450 or 500 MHz, having 9.5 million transistors, based on a 0.25 micron process, 100 MHz bus, 64 bit bus, intended for use in business and consumer PCs, one and two-way servers and workstations. A version in 550 MHz is introduced on May 17, and 600 MHz on August 2, 1999.
¶ February 25, pre-announcement of the Elbrus E2K processor by Russian company Elbrus International, performing 3 to 5 times faster than Intel Merced while still running all legacy MS DOS and Windows software, operating at 1200 MHz, fabricated in a 0.18-micron process, delivering 135 SPECint95 and 350 SPECfp95, power consumption is 35W, die size is 126 mmІ.
¶ February 1, America Online announces it will acquire Moviefone, Inc., USA's biggest movie listing and ticketing company.
¶ January, Compaq creates the AltaVista Company.
¶ January, Compaq delivers world's fastest workstation: the AlphaPowered Professional Workstation XP1000.
¶ January 25, Sun Microsystems introduces the Jini network technology (announcement), promising to enable "the simple connection of any device to any network, any time, anywhere". Embedded systems and smart homes are all the rage this year.
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1998
¶ America Online surpasses 15 million members, launches AOL Australia, and is added to the S&P 500. Sun Microsystems takes over Netscape's server software development parts under a strategic parternship known as iPlanet. The browser project Mozilla goes freeware.
¶ America Online acquires CompuServe and online messaging pioneer ICQ.
¶ The Universal Music Group is formed when Canadian Seagram Company Ltd. acquires PolyGram. Deutsche Grammophon (cf 1898) is now part of Universal Classics.
¶ GEC-Marconi Limited (cf 1987) is renamed Marconi Electronic Systems Limited.
¶ Asia's first CDMA cellular network is installed in Singapore by Cable & Wireless.
¶ Yahoo! ends the year with 50 million unique members, 18 world properties and completes its first profitable year.
¶ First satellite phone call made over Globalstar's system.
¶ WorldCom merges with MCI Communications.
¶ Hotbot is acquired by Lycos, but continues to run as a separate service.
¶ December 3, Visioneer, based in Fremont, California, maker of small systems scanners and scanning software PaperPort announces the acquisition of ScanSoft, Inc. from Xerox. ScanSoft, Inc., founded in 1993 and headquartered in Peabody, Massachusetts, is the maker of the TextBridge software for optical character recognition (OCR) (cf March 13, 2000). Visioneer's scanner hardware business, including the Visioneer brand name, is sold to Taiwan-based Primax Electronics Ltd., finalized on January 7, 1999.
¶ December, two segments (8 and 9) of the SEA-ME-WE 3 (South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3) cable is installed. Segment S9 carries 2 x 20 Gbps over 1600 km between Penmarc'h, France and Sesimbra, Portugal. Segment S8 carries 2 x 20 Gbps over 5300 km between Sesimbra, Portugal; Tetuan, Morocco; Mazara, Italy; Chania, Greece; Marmaris, Turkey; Yeroskipos, Cyprus; and Alexandria, Egypt.
¶ December, Compaq receives PC Magazine's "Best of '98" award in the corporate PC category for its Deskpro EN Series 450 model.
¶ November 24, America Online announces it will acquire Netscape Communications Corporation in a stock transaction valued at $4.2 Billion.
¶ November, Compaq co-develops with Panasonic world's first high definition digital television tuner-decoder for personal computers.
¶ November, Compaq launches Prosignia brand and direct selling program for small and medium businesses.
¶ November, Be introduces BeOS Release 4.
¶ November, Compaq introduces world's first broadband-ready Internet PCs with Pinacor, Inc.
¶ November 11, America Online acquires Personalogic, Inc.
¶ October, Compaq affirms commitment to OpenVMS with introduction of OpenVMS Galaxy architecture and major OpenVMS enhancements.
¶ October, Compaq announces major enhancements to AltaVista search engine, including new searching techniques and features.
¶ October 1, Global Crossing announces the Pan European Crossing, a fiber optic network directly linking 18 European cities with the United States, Asia and Latin America.
¶ September, Compaq introduces the space-saving, full-featured, high-performance rack server, the ProLiant 1850R.
¶ September, Compaq acquires rights to AltaVista domain name.
¶ September, Compaq unveils initiative with Microsoft to make Digital UNIX more interoperable with Windows NT; propels the operating system into a premier role in the enterprise data center.
¶ August, at the introduction, Apple Computer's curvy, teal-and-translucent iMac was hailed as a revolution in computer design, having a 233 MHz PowerPC 750 CPU, 64 bit datapath, 1 MB ROM, RAM expandable to 256 MB, no floppy, 4 GB built-in hard disk, built-in 24-speed CD-ROM, built-in 15" 1024x768 color monitor, 16 bit stereo sound, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet. Priced at $1,299.
¶ July, Compaq launches industry's first Web-based enterprise management program.
¶ June 29, introduction of the Intel Pentium II Xeon processor, operating at 400 MHz, having 7.5 million transistors, 100 MHz bus, 64 bit system bus, intended for use in midrange and higher servers and workstations.
¶ June, Forbes listing of the world's richest people has (1) Bill Gates, Microsoft $51 billion, (2) Walton Family, Walmart $48 billion, (3) Sultan Bolkiah, Brunei $36 billion, and (4) Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway $33 billion.
¶ June, the Open Directory is launched under the name NewHoo, and is acquired by Netscape in November 1998. This web directory is built by volunteers.
¶ June, Compaq unveils industry's first open-standards enterprise computer telephony modem.
¶ June, Compaq launches "Built For You" program, offering custom-configured PCs via in-store kiosks at participating retail locations.
¶ June, Compaq acquires Digital Equipment Corporation; largest acquisition in computer industry history, creating the second largest computing company in the world.
¶ June 8, America Online acquires Mirabilis Ltd and its ICQ instant communications and chat technology.
¶ May, first announcement of the Bluetooth wireless technology for personal area networks, initially developed by Ericsson, soon formed as an industry membership organization. Bluetooth operates in the license-free 2.4 GHz band and promises speeds up to 1 Mbps in ranges up to 10 meters.
¶ May 26, Global Crossing announces opening of the (the first segment, US to UK of the) Atlantic Crossing (AC-1) cable. It carries 20 Gbps. AC-1 is the first segment in the planned global network are PC-1, MAC, and PAC.
¶ May 18, Lucent is reported to have a stock value of US$ 96 billion, which is more than the US$ 93 billion value of AT&T. In 1996, AT&T was split into three parts: the current AT&T (then US$ 97 billion), Lucent (then US$ 18 billion), and NCR. This means Lucent has increased its stock value by 430 % in two years. At one time the value of AT&T was down to US$ 57 billion, but has regained most of its value.
¶ May 12, following Microsoft's appeal, the Court of Appeals granted a stay of the December 1997 injunction. Six days later, on May 18, 1998, the Justice Department filed a formal antitrust action charging Microsoft with attempting to monopolize the market in Internet browsers by tying the Internet Explorer to Windows.
¶ May 7, Japan Telecom, KDD, and NTT-WN agree together with the US and European telecommunications carriers (AT&T, Cable & Wireless, GST, GTE, MCI, PGE, Sprint, WorldCom) to integrate two projects, Japan-US Cable System and TPC-6, which had been studied individually, into one (1) new cable system named "Japan-US Cable Network" (JUSCN). The cable network is planned to go into operation from the first quarter of year 2000. (cf April 2000)
¶ May, the ACI cable is installed by Global Crossing between Brookhaven, UK; Whitesands, UK; Beverwyjk, the Netherlands; Sylt, Germany; and Brookhaven, US, a distance of 14,000 km. It carries 4 x 10 Gb/s.
¶ May, Compaq launches color inkjet printers for retail.
¶ April, CADALYST Magazine declares Compaq monitors as best in industry.
¶ April, Compaq introduces video conferencing kit and high-capacity diskette drive for portable PCs.
¶ April 15, introduction of the Intel Celeron processor, operating at 266 MHz, having 7.5 million transistors, based on a 0.25 micron process, 66MHz bus, 64 bit system bus, intended for use in low-cost PCs.
¶ March 18, Nokia introduces the Nokia 9110 Communicator at CeBIT, called a second generation communicator. Weighing 249 grams, this 900 MHz GSM telephone and pocket organizer with memory expandable to 4 Mbytes is announced to ship in the third quarter of 1998. Nokia claims to be the world's second largest maker of mobile phones (handheld terminal equipment).
¶ March, Compaq unveils new Armada SB series tailored for small businesses.
¶ March, BeOS Release 3 is the first version of BeOS for Intel processors.
¶ March, Compaq introduces line of remote access servers based on Windows NT server solutions.
¶ February, 16--19, at the GSM World Conference in Cannes, France, Ericsson gives world's first live demo of GPRS (general packet radio services - over GSM).
¶ February 2, America Online completes the acquisition of CompuServe and the sale of ANS Communications.
¶ February, the Gemini cable is installed by Gemini Submarine Cable System, Ltd. between Manasquan, NJ, U.S.A; Charlestown, RI, USA; Oxwich Bay, UK; and Porthcurno, UK, a distance of 12,600 km. It carries 2 x 15 Gb/s on an SDH Ring.
¶ January, 29th, ETSI decides on single air interface solution for the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone System), Europe's next generation mobile communications based on W-CDMA and TD-CDMA technologies.
¶ January 21, America Online acquires Personal Library Software.
¶ January, Hotmail is sold to Microsoft for $400 million. (cf July 4, 1996)
¶ January, Compaq announces 1997 revenues of $24.6 billion.
¶ January, Forbes magazine names Compaq its 1997 Company of the Year.
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1997
¶ Tyco Submarine Systems Ltd. (TSSL) is formed when Tyco acquires AT&T Submarine Systems Inc. (SSI). TSSL is one of the world's leading suppliers of submarine cable systems. Two others are KDD-SCS of Japan and Alcatel Submarine Networks of France.
¶ IBM's Deep Blue, a 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer, defeated World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, in the first known instance of a computer vanquishing the world champion chess player in tournament-style competition.
¶ America Online launches AOL Japan, passes 10 million members in the USA and 1 million international.
¶ Global steel consumption 700 million tonnes.
¶ Mercury Communications Ltd (cf 1981) becomes part of Cable & Wireless Communications
¶ Motorola introduces the M-Core 32-bit embedded processor architecture.
¶ The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is set up for regulation of commercial communication services in India. It delivers its first judgement against the incumbent operator DoT.
¶ December 11, the District Court entered a preliminary injuction banning Microsoft to tie the Internet Explorer to Windows. The Justice Department believed that the 1995 decree banned the tying of the IE browser to Windows and complained to the court that Microsoft was in contempt. Microsoft files an appeal of this injunction. (cf 1998)
¶ December 10, creator of the Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds, receives the 1997 Nokia Foundation Award worth FIM 50,000.
¶ December, Swedish datacom software developer Trio Information Systems buys Swedish interactive voice response system developer Objecta Elektronik och Data AB for the purpose of furthering computer telephony integration. The price was 25 MSEK.
¶ November 20, America Online Studios acquires Extreme Fans, Inc.
¶ November, IBM introduces the Aptiva E16, its first PC priced under $1000.
¶ November, Fiber Link Across/Around the Globe (FLAG) cable is installed, passing 12 countries (including Shanghai, China) between United Kingdom and Japan, a distance of 27,000 km. It carries 2 x 5 Gbps.
¶ October, NTT Worldwide Network Corporation (NTT-WN) is established as the NTT group's first international facilities-based (Type I) telecommunications company.
¶ October 8, Nortel and Norweb Communications announce a new technology which allows data to be transferred over power lines.
¶ September, start of the Slashdot website, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
¶ September 8, America Online announces it intends to sell ANS Communications to WorldCom in exchange from CompuServe Online Services and $175 million in cash. The deal also involves Bertlesmann AG to jointly operate CompuServe Europe.
¶ September 8, introduction of the Intel Mobile Pentium processor, operating at 200 and 233 MHz, having 4.5 million transistors, based on a 0.25 micron process, 64-bit bus, packaged in a 320-pin capsule, intended for use in mobile PCs and mini-notebooks.
¶ August, Compaq acquires Tandem Computer Incorporated, creating a global computer solutions company.
¶ August 12, the Northern Light web search engine opens. The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
¶ July 14, Be ships the first public, commercial release of BeOS for PowerPC, BeOS Preview Release.
¶ June 26, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet unite to create an open common Wireless Applications Protocol. See the WAP Forum web site for details. Version 1.0 of the WAP specifications are published on April 30th, 1998, at which time the forum has 37 members.
¶ June, Forbes listing of the world's richest people has (1) Sultan Bolkiah, Brunei $38 billion, (2) Bill Gates, Microsoft $36 billion, (3) Walton Family, Walmart $27 billion, and (4) Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway $23 billion.
¶ June, 3Com Corporation acquires modem manufacturer U.S. Robotics for $ 7.3 billion (including Palm Computing, Inc.).
¶ June, an Ericsson phone (fiction model) is featured in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.
¶ June, Compaq introduces the TFT 500, flat-panel monitor.
¶ June 1, Ask Jeeves goes into full service after having been in beta since mid-April 1997. The company Jeeves Solutions is based in Emeryville, California.
¶ May 7, introduction of the Intel Pentium II microprocessor, operating at 300 MHz, having a 64 bit bus, 7.5 million transistors, and being able to address 64 GB of memory.
¶ April, plans are announced for a cable system to link China directly to the USA, based on a 30,000 km cable loop with four fibre pairs, operating with 8-way WDM to give a total capacity of 80 Mbps, and it is intended to have it in service by the end of 1999. Several telecoms vendors are involved in the project, including NTT, the dominant Japanese domestic supplier, in its first foray into this area.
¶ April 15, first issue of RLG DigiNews, an academic online magazine on digital libraries published by the Research Libraries Group (RLG).
¶ April, in Santa Clara, CA, the Sixth International World Wide Web Conference. One of the most popular topics was XML, as presented by Tim Bray and Jon Bosak.
¶ April, Compaq acquires Microcom to broaden communications product offerings.
¶ March, in San Diego, CA, the First XML Conference is arranged by the Graphic Communications Association.
¶ February, Compaq announces its new Presario 2000, sub-$1000 series.
¶ January, Be discontinues the BeBox to concentrate solely on BeOS.
¶ January, Compaq unveils the Presario 1060ES, Compaq's first portable designed specifically for education.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1996
¶ Formation of the UMTS Forum a membership organization of the dominating telcos and telecom industry companies for the interest of the third generation cell phone systems (3G).
¶ The Trans-Pacific cable TPC-5CN is installed between San Luis Obispo, California, USA; Guam; Hawaii; Japan; and back to Bandon, Oregon, USA. It carries 2 x 5 Gbps.
¶ The U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 heralds a new era in telecom competition.
¶ The world on an average has 12.8 main and 2.4 cellular telephone lines per 100 inhabitants, with an annual growth of 7 % and 62 % respectively. Asia and North America have 46 million cellular subscribers each, but annual growth is 106 % and 30 % respectively.
¶ NTT is the world's leading telecom operator by revenue (US$ 71 billion), followed by AT&T (52) and Deutsche Telekom (40). NTT is also the world's leading cellular operator (16 million subscribers). In the next years, watch out for fast growing DGT (China) and Telebras (Brazil).
¶ The world's leading telecom equipment manufacturers by revenue are Motorola (US$ 19 billion), Ericsson (18), Alcatel (16), Lucent (15), Siemens (15), NEC (13), and Nortel (12).
¶ 1.5 million contactless cards are issued in Korea for bus fare.
¶ Smart Cards are used in local merchant stores at the Summer Olympic games in Atlanta.
¶ Motorola's StarTAC is the world's smallest and lightest wearable cellular telephone, weighing only 3.1ounce.
¶ Sun Microsystems introduces the UltraSPARC 64-bit chip and the Sun Ultra workstation.
¶ America Online launches AOL France, surpasses 7 million members, and moves from NASDAQ to NYSE under symbol "AOL".
¶ Yahoo! goes public on the NASDAQ under symbol YHOO.
¶ December 31, NCR becomes an independent company, a spin-off from AT&T. (cf 1995)
¶ November, Compaq produces its one-millionth server.
¶ November, Compaq introduces its handheld PC, the PC companion.
¶ October 1, Lucent becomes an independent company, a spin-off from AT&T. (cf 1995)
¶ October, 1st, Cellnet, Compaq, DeTeMobil, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Mannesmann, Microsoft, Nokia, Telia, Toshiba and Vodata unite to form the Mobile Data Initiative. Learn more at the GSM Data Knowledge Site and the PCS Data Knowledge Site.
¶ August, 15th, Nokia starts sales of the Nokia 9000 Communicator, for the first time integrating a GSM cellular phone with a personal organizer, introduced at the CeBIT fair earlier this year. In April 1997, the communicator is featured in the movie The Saint.
¶ August, Transatlantic telephone cable TAT-12/13 is installed. It is a ring of undersea cable segments interconnecting cable stations in Green Hill, Rhode Island; Lands End, England; Penmarch, France; and Shirley, New York, a distance of 6,321 km. Optical amplifier technology is used. The redundant ring network carries 10 Gbps of traffic (300,000 voice circuits). The investment was US$ 1,000 per voice channel.
¶ August, first demonstrations of BeOS for Power Macintosh hardware.
¶ August 6, America Online acquires Imagination Network.
¶ July 4, Hotmail is launched, the first webmail service. The company was started the year before by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. In January 1998 the company was sold to Microsoft for $400 million. Prior to Hotmail, Bhatia was a systems integrator at Apple Computer, where he coordinated the design and manufacturing of Apple Powerbook. He also worked for Fire Power Systems - a Silicon Valley start up.
¶ July, W3C begins work on SGML/XML.
¶ July, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) goes through "The Great Split" as EFnet splits into two separate networks as a result of a disagreement on whether the network should use timestamps (EFnet, US-dominated) or Nick Delay (IRCnet, Europe-dominated) as a means to prevent nickname collisions.
¶ June, Compaq announces its Armada family of value-priced, flexible notebooks.
¶ June, Forbes listing of the world's richest people has (1) Bill Gates, Microsoft $18 billion, (2) Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway $15 billion, (3) Paul Sacher Family, Switzerland $13 billion, and (4) Lee Shau Kee, Hong Kong $12 billion.
¶ May, HotBot is launched as Wired Digital's entry into the web search engine market
¶ April, first public developer release of BeOS for the BeBox.
¶ April, more than 49 million messages have been sent since 1981 using e-mail on MTS (cf 1967).
¶ March, Compaq announces the LS-120, the industry's first 120 MB floppy drive.
¶ March 12, Swedish ISP Algonet is acquired by Telenordia.
¶ January 16, Supreme Court let the Appeals Court's ruling of March 9, 1995 stand in the case between Borland and Lotus.
¶ January, Compaq announces 1995 sales of $14.8 billion, lifting Compaq to No. 5 computer company in the world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1995
¶ U.S. Robotics acquires Palm Computing, Inc.
¶ Yahoo is incorporated.
¶ Bells Labs develops Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), which tremendously increses the capacity of optic fibre as a carrier of data.
¶ Sun Microsystems introduces Tcl/Tk (pronounced "Tickle/Tea Kay"), a multiplatform providing support for safe execution of untrusted scripts from the network and the ability to run GUI applications independent of the platform - UNIX, Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh.
¶ Excite is launched.
¶ America Online reaches 4.5 million members.
¶ Motorola's FORTE data radio, which includes handwriting recognition software and a two-way radio, wins the (American) Industrial Design Excellence Award for communications equipment.
¶ GEC acquires Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd. (VSEL).
¶ Internet services are launched in India.
¶ First cellular service is launched in India at Calcutta by Modi Telstra.
¶ "Cable modems" are introduced. These high speed digital connections over cable television networks are primarily used for Internet connectivity. (One source says U.S. cellular subscribers reach 40 million this year, but this number more likely refers to CATV-connected homes).
¶ December 4, Netscape and Sun Microsystems announce plans to develop Javascript (announcement), an open, cross-platform object scripting language for enterprise networks and the Internet.
¶ December, the Altavista web search engine is launched by Digital Equipment Corporation's Palo Alto research labs, originally on the URL http://www.altavista.digital.com
¶ November, Compaq acquires NetWorth to extend internetworking product line and include stackable hubs, high-speed hubs and Ethernet switches.
¶ November 1, introduction of the Intel Pentium Pro microprocessor, operating at 200 MHz, having a 64 bit bus, 5.5 million transistors, and being able to address 64 GB of memory.
¶ October, IRC hits 15,000 simultaneous users.
¶ October, Be introduces BeOS at Agenda 96. The demo is done on multiprocessor hardware Be has specially developed, the BeBox.
¶ October, Compaq acquires Thomas-Conrad and forms a new internetworking products group.
¶ September, Compaq is awarded Europe's largest-ever PC contract with British Telecom.
¶ September 20, AT&T announces that it will be splitting into three companies over the susequent fifteen months: AT&T, providing communication services; Lucent Technologies, a systems and technology company, providing communications products; and NCR Corp., in the computer business (cf 1991).
¶ May 23, Sun Microsystems introduces the Java programming language and the Hotjava web browser (Java-enabled). Netscape Inc. licenses Java. (cf 1688)
¶ March, WebCrawler is acquired by America Online.
¶ March 9, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling of July 1992. Borland's Quatro Pro did not infringe on the copyrights of Lotus 1-2-3. Lotus appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court and the Court agreed to hear the case. However, on January 16, 1996, the Supreme Court, by a 4-4 tie vote (Justice Stevens not participating), let the Appeals Court's ruling stand.
¶ March, Compaq announces a complete redesign of the popular Deskpro product line with new "Intelligent Manageability" features.
¶ February, federal judge Sporkin rejects the US Justice Department's proposed consent decree in the antitrust case against Microsoft (cf 1994). However, the Appeals Court overruled this and the consent decree was finalized. Under the decree, Microsoft (1) stops to use CPU licensing (cf 1983), (2) stops using long-term OEM licensing, and (3) stops requiring non-disclosure agreements from operating system beta testers.
¶ January, Compaq achieves the No. 1 worldwide PC marketshare position.
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1994
¶ Ward Cunningham founds the world's first Wiki website, the Portland Pattern Repository. The concept of collectively editable websites catch on big time in 2000 and 2001 with a multitude of implementations (in Perl, Python, and PHP; names used are MoinMoin, UseMod, and Wiki) and sites. The first book on Wiki is:
Bo Leuf, Ward Cunningham, The Wiki Way. Quick Collaboration on the Web, Addison-Wesley, 2001, ISBN 0-201-71499-X. See the publisher's online presentation and the companion website
¶ Canadian Transatlantic cable CANTAT-3 is installed between Pennant Point, Nova Scotia, Canada; Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland; Tjornuvik, Faroe Islands; Redcar, United Kingdom; Blaabjerg, Denmark; and Sylt, Germany, a distance of 7,104 km. It carries 2.5 Gb/s. The investment was US$ 1,000 per voice channel.
¶ The Columbus-II cable is installed between Palermo, Sicily, Italy; Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal; Sardina, Gran Canary Island, Spain; St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, USA; West Palm Beach, Florida, USA; and Cancun, Mexico, a distance of 12,300 km. It carries 3 x 560 Mb/s (the segment St. Thomas - West Palm Beach carries 2 x 2.5 Gb/s).
¶ The SEA-ME-WE2 cable (South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 2) is installed between France, Italy, Indonesia, and Singapore. It carries 2 x 560 Mbps.
¶ Yahoo opens service from the Stanford office of graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo.
¶ Europay, MasterCard, and VISA (EMV) create specifications for electronic cash.
¶ Twenty percent of Mercury (cf 1981) is sold to BCE of Canada.
¶ Motorola's iDEN system is the first commercial radio system designed to integrate paging, data communications, voice dispatch and wireless telephones in a single radio network and a single handset.
¶ The National Telecom Policy is announced in India. It opens the local telecom services for competition.
¶ Commercial radio paging services introduced in India.
¶ The U.S. FCC begins RF spectrum auctions.
¶ America Online reaches one million members.
¶ December, the Netscape Navigator web browser begins shipping.
¶ October 3, opening of the Swedish IDG\Online BBS.
¶ September, foundation of Swedish web consultancy InformationsVдvarna in Linkцping, later renamed Idonex, and then Roxen Internet Software.
¶ August, Swedish ISP Algonet starts, the first to offer affordable modem accounts for home Internet users.
¶ August, Swedish weekly z.mag@zine opens website z.central.
¶ August 25, the first Swedish newspaper on the Internet (WWW) is Aftonbladet.
¶ August, just before the Swedish parliamentary election on September 18, the non-socialist government under Carl Bildt liquidates the wage-earners' investment funds ("lцntagarfonderna", legislated by a previous social democrat government) and transfers 19 billion SEK to various new foundations, many of which sponsor new Internet projects in the next years. For a political context, read also Sweden Climbs the Information Technology Ladder, Speech Given by Prime Minister Carl Bildt at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) on 7 February 1994.
¶ July 15, the US Justice Department expands the FTC antitrust case against Microsoft (cf 1993) and on this date proposes a consent decree. (cf 1995)
¶ July, development of WWW moves from CERN to the W3 Consortium, established by Tim Berners-Lee and based both in Europe and the US. Berners-Lee is concerned that, without an organization like W3C to develop common software standards and protocols, the Web will disintegrate into a number of proprietary and conflicting systems.
¶ Summer, IRC split: Undernet (cf December 1992) spawns Dalnet.
¶ Summer, the term "intranet" for a company-internal web server is coined by Steven L. Telleen at Amdahl Corporation (says he).
¶ June, Compaq announces its first rack-mountable Compaq server (Rack-Mountable ProLiant).
¶ April 20, WebCrawler web search engine opens at the University of Washington.
¶ April, analysts report that Compaq is No. 1 worldwide for 1Q 1994.
¶ February 4, Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt (later involved with UN in Bosnia and ICANN at large) sends an e-mail to US president Bill Clinton, the first Internet e-mail between two heads of state. (cf 1976)
¶ February, Compaq introduces its first sub-notebook, the Compaq Aero.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1993
¶ IBM posts a $8.1 billion loss and the company has 256,000 employees worldwide, down 36.8 perent from 1990.
¶ AT&T acquires McCaw Cellular for US$ 11.5 billion.
¶ South Atlantic cable SAT-2 is installed between Melkbosstrand, South Africa; El Medano, Tenerife Island, Spain; and Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal, a distance of 9,500km. It carries 2 x 560 Mb/s.
¶ Transatlantic cable TAT-11 is installed between Manahawkin, New Jersey; Oxwich Bay, England; and St. Hilaire-de-Riez, France, a distance of 7,162km. It carries 560 Mb/s. The investment was US$ 2,000 per voice channel.
¶ The first digital mobile network is established in the US.
¶ Three payment systems recognize that comparable specifications for the interchange of information between smart cards and readers are required.
¶ Europe sets 1998 as the date for full liberalization of its telecom markets.
¶ November, Compaq introduces the first mini-tower Compaq PCs, Presario and Prolinea.
¶ October 29, the Council of the European Communities signs a directive to harmonize the copyright protection term to the author's life + 70 years (was life + 50 in most countries). Sweden implements this in legislation that takes effect on January 1, 1996.
¶ September, Compaq launches the Presario family for the consumer marketplace (the first all-in-one Compaq PC).
¶ September, Compaq announces the Concerto, the first pen-based notebook PC from Compaq.
¶ May, when I (Lars Aronsson) use Mosaic to surf "the entire web", I find some 18 servers. One of them is Lysator's, started in February by Per Hedbor.
¶ May, Compaq delivers its first Pentium processor-based products.
¶ April, Magnus Olsson starts the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.multics.
¶ April, Compaq signs a Frontline Partnership Agreement with Microsoft.
¶ March 22, introduction of the Intel Pentium microprocessor, operating at 66 MHz, having a 64 bit bus, 3.1 million transistors, being able to address 4 GB of memory.
¶ March 12, a U.S. federal judge awards Steve Jackson Games of Austin, Texas US$ 42,000 for lost profits in 1990, plus expenses, following a U.S. Secret Service crackdown on alleged computer hacking activities. The judge also rules that the Secret Service had violated the 1986 ECPA because it had seized stored messages from many users of the BBS who were not suspected of anything.
¶ February, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), presented with a case from its staff, deadlocks 2-2 on whether to issue a preliminary injuction against several Microsoft practices. The same deadlock is repeated six months later, but the US Justice Department expands the case and on July 15, 1994 proposes a consent decree.
¶ February, Sweden's first web server is Lysator, started by Per Hedbor.
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1992
¶ The District Court rules in favor of defendant Microsoft after Apple accused it of copyright infringement in 189 ways when introducing the graphical user interface in Microsoft Windows. The Judge found that of the 189 claimed infringement violations, 179 were clearly protected by the licensing agreement. Of the remaining 10 claimed violations, the Judge ruled that the ideas were not original to Apple (for the "look and feel", Apple had got some ideas from Xerox), and therefore, could not be protected. Apple appealed this decision to the Appeals Court, but the Court affirmed the decision. Apple then appealed to the Supreme Court, which denied the appeal.
¶ Trans-Pacific cable TPC-4 is installed between Japan, Canada, and the U.S. It carries 2 x 560 Mbps.
¶ Transatlantic cable TAT-10 is installed between Green Hill, Rhode Island; Norden, Germany; Terschelling, Netherlands; and Alkmaar, Netherlands, a distance of 7,354km. It carries 560 Mb/s. The investment was US$ 2,500 per voice channel.
¶ "Expo 92" held in Sйville, Spain
¶ America Online goes public on the NASDAQ market at original price of $11.50 under symbol AMER.
¶ This year, Cable & Wireless provides 1.66 billion minutes of outgoing telephone traffic. The company owns 25 percent of the world's digital and analogue submarine cable systems including 28,000 km of digital cable.
¶ Veronica, a search service for Gopher released by University of Nevada. (The name is a pun on Archie, the FTP search service. Archie and Veronica appear in the same comic strip.)
¶ The Multicast Backbone (MBONE) for the first time carries audio and video.
¶ The Internet connects one million hosts.
¶ The Internet Society (ISOC) is formed by Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and others.
¶ The U.S. cable TV Act is introduced to regulate CATV pricing.
¶ December, IRC split: EFnet spawns Undernet (see the History of the Undernet).
¶ December 13, start of Project Runeberg, an open and voluntary initiative to publish free electronic editions of Scandinavian literature on the Internet. See also Project Runeberg's timeline.
¶ October, Compaq introduces its first low-cost server, the Compaq ProSignia.
¶ September, Compaq introduces its first printer product, the Compaq Pagemarq.
¶ September 17, British software company Data Connection, founded in 1981, announces their X.400 e-mail solution was selected by Microsoft.
¶ July, the District Court ruled that Borland had infringed on Lotus copyrights, when it developed the spreadsheet calculation program Quatro Pro based on ideas from Lotus 1-2-3. The ruling was reversed on March 9, 1995 by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
¶ July, CERT advisory on ICMP attacks.
¶ June, Compaq introduces its first low-cost PCs, the ProLinea, and Contura.
¶ Summer, the Mosaic web browser is developed by students at NCSA.
¶ March, Sun Labs and Hewlett-Packard begins work on CORBA.
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1991
¶ The NSFnet finally allows internetwork routing with commercial networks. The NSFnet backbone is completely upgraded to T3 speed (45 Mbit/s).
¶ IBM sells ROLM Corp. (cf 1984) to Siemens of Germany.
¶ Bell Labs develops photonic switching.
¶ The Internet connects 600,000 hosts in more than 100 countries.
¶ Transatlantic telephone cable TAT-9 is installed. It carries 80,000 simultaneous telephone calls or 560 Mbps. The investment was US$ 5,500 per voice channel.
¶ Gopher released by University of Minnesota (Paul Lindner and Mark McCahill) - a campus-wide document delivery system.
¶ A technology alliance among Apple Computer, IBM and Motorola begins development of the PowerPC family of microprocessors.
¶ WAIS (wide area information servers, Brewster Kahle) released by Thinking Machines Corp.
¶ Globalstar is incorporated.
¶ AT&T acquires NCR in a US$ 7.3 billion deal. (cf 1995)
¶ Opening of the North Pacific Cable by Cable & Wireless, capable of carrying 85,000 simultaneous calls.
¶ December (or earlier?), the term "ravioli code" is coined by (?) Olga de Troyer at Tilburg University, meaning "the object-oriented counterpart to spaghetti code".
¶ October, introduction of the Macintosh PowerBook 100, Apple's first truely portable was designed by Sony, weight 5.1 lbs, having a 16 MHz Motorola MC68HC000 CPU, 16 bit datapath, 256 kB ROM, 2 MB RAM expandable to 8 MB, optional modem, 20-40 MB hard disk, passive matrix B&W 640x400 screen, 8 bit mono sound. Priced at $2,500. Introduced at the same time were the more powerful PowerBook 140 (6.8 lbs, MC68030 CPU, 32 bit datapath) and PowerBook 170 (25 MHz, MC68882 FPU, active matrix screen, $4,600).
¶ October, IRC usage averages 399 users on 120 servers with 44 opers.
¶ September, Compaq introduces its first modular PC, the Compaq Deskpro/M family.
¶ July, Microsoft introduces MS-DOS 5.0, which had been announced a whole year earlier, following the release of the competing DR-DOS from Digital Research Incorporat

В этом номере "Стандарта" вы найдете, пожалуй, самую знаменитую аналитическую карту - Карту собственности. Один раз в году мы публикуем схему, из которой четко видно, кто и через какие структуры владеет ключевыми телекоммуникационными активами в России, а также как эти активы взаимосвязаны друг с другом. Карта образца июля 2009 года особенно интересна: она показывает, как изменилась структура собственности в российском телекоме в кризисный год.

Главное наблюдение - сделок по приобретению операторов связи за последний год почти не проводилось. Единственной ажиотажной сферой поглощений стала скупка сотовыми операторами розничных сетей - от покупки "ВымпелКомом" 49,9% группы "Евросеть" до поглощения сетей "Телефон.ру" или салонов связи "Эльдорадо" со стороны МТС. Но эти активы, как не операторские, находятся вне сферы интересов данной Карты собственности (да и сами покупатели, похоже, не рады новым приобретениям - иначе вряд ли бы вся "большая тройка" начала спешно устанавливать торговые стойки на улицах, вокзалах и в аэропортах российских городов).

Профильные сделки операторов связи были единичными и носили региональный характер. Например, ЗАО "Вест Колл Лтд" еще осенью 2008 года купило 90% долей компании "Сильвернет" - оператора домовых сетей в нескольких районах Петербурга. Той же осенью кипрский холдинг TeleDev East Ltd (за которым действительно стоят греки-киприоты) через казанского дочернего оператора "Телесет" купил 51% долей в ООО "Симбирские телекоммуникационные системы", причем по "предкризисной" цене $1 тыс. за абонента. До этого TeleDev East, помимо ООО "Телесет", контролировал ООО "Сети телекоммуникационных компаний" (Stelcom), новороссийского провайдера "Формула плюс" и сеть интернет-салонов TimeOnLine в Москве.

В конце 2008 года фонд Volga River One Capital Partners стал совладельцем регионального провайдера "Уфанет", выкупив миноритарный пакет у бывшего единственного акционера - ООО "Фирма "Башкирские инвестиции". Это стало второй инвестицией Volga River One, за которым стоят выходцы из МДМ-банка, в телеком - первым вложением весной 2008 года была покупка блокпакета самарского WiMAX-оператора "Метромакс" (с опционом на увеличение доли до 49,6%).

Аналогично - с упором на регионы - действовали и МРК "Связьинвеста". Так, в мае 2008 года "Дальсвязь" поглотила 100% уставного капитала ООО "Сеть Столица", обслуживающего 3 тыс. абонентов в Якутске. А в июле 2009 года "ВолгаТелеком" приобрела 100% в ООО "Городская Телефонная связь" (ГТС), которое оказывает услуги на территории города Саров и поселка Сатис в Нижегородской области (монтированная емкость сети местной телефонной связи ГТС - 33 тыс. номеров).

Умная голова

В остальном операторы, пользуясь размеренным кризисным временем, занимались оптимизацией корпоративной структуры, и ключевым трендом стала централизация. Географически распределенные холдинги либо присоединяли региональных "дочек" к головной компании (или как минимум увеличивали доли в их уставном капитале), либо создавали управляющие структуры. Одним из наиболее значимых событий стало превращение WiMAX-провайдера "Энфорта" в единого оператора. За первое полугодие 2009 года "Энфорта" реорганизовала все дочерние компании, имевшие организационно-правовую форму ЗАО, в ООО, а следующим шагом присоединила их к головному юрлицу - ООО "Престиж-Интернет" (которое также имело форму ЗАО до начала процесса). После того как в июле последняя "дочка" - ООО "АртКомъюникейшин" - "растворилась" в материнской компании, "Энфорта" стала единой структурой, с операциями в десятках регионов России. Теперь компания де-факто стала федеральным WiMAX-игроком и намерена по всей стране претендовать на частоты для мобильного WiMAX.

С июля 2009 года "МегаФон" начал действовать как единый оператор в масштабах всей страны: для этого к ОАО "МегаФон" были присоединены все его девять дочерних компаний - от ЗАО "Соник Дуо" в Москве до ЗАО "Мобиком-Хабаровск". Менеджмент "МегаФона" давно хотел перевести все дочерние структуры на единую акцию, но получить одобрение всех акционеров удалось лишь после выхода из уставного капитала этого оператора структур датского юриста Джеффри Гальмонда.

Прошлой осенью "ЭР-Телеком Холдинг" завершил процесс взятия в прямое владение всех 17 региональных компаний. Для этого он к октябрю 2008 года скупил у миноритариев акции ЗАО "ЭР-Телеком" (Пермь), доведя долю в последнем до 91% (оставшиеся 9% акций принадлежат менеджменту пермской компании). Вслед за этим в прямое владение ЗАО "ЭР-Телеком Холдинг" перешли ЗАО "Компания "ЭР-Телеком" из Самары и одноименная фирма из Волгограда.

В конце 2008 года "Норильск Телеком" объединил в холдинг "РусИнтерКом" все мультимедийные активы: операторов кабельного телевидения и доступа в Интернет "Астрон" и "ОптиксТел" (Красноярск), операторов кабельного телевидения "Атлас" (Железногорск) и "Прима Телесеть" (Ачинск), а также интернет-провайдера "Академ.Орг" (Новосибирск).

В июле 2009 года поволжский сотовый оператор СМАРТС решил создать новую структуру - "СМАРТС-Холдинг", - которая станет управлять всеми его активами. Пока у ОАО "СМАРТС" имеется шесть сотовых "дочек" и находящееся в стадии ликвидации СП с Tele2 (ЗАО "Сетевая компания"), но в официальном сообщении оператора говорится: "В зону ответственности холдинговой компании входят телекоммуникации, недвижимость, энергетика, туризм и другое". Похоже, что Геннадий Кирюшин, который вместе с сыном Константином и дочерью Юлией контролирует 60,55% голосующих акций СМАРТСа, решил диверсифицировать бизнес. Правда, до момента регистрации "СМАРТС-Холдинга" представители СМАРТСа планов не раскрывают.

Внутренние дела

Другие участники рынка занимались присоединением и увеличением долей в дочерних компаниях штучно. "Комстар-ОТС" в начале 2009 года присоединил дочернее ОАО "Тюменнефтегазсвязь" к другой уральской "дочке" - ОАО "Региональный технический центр".

В феврале 2009 года "Синтерра" довела долю в ООО "Синтерра-Урал" до 100%, выкупив 25,01% его долей у ЗАО "Бенефит". Скорее всего, на следующем шаге "Синтерра-Урал" вберет в себя две дочерние структуры - ЗАО "ТК-Урал" (Екатеринбург) и ЗАО "Кам-Телеком" (Пермь). Ранее, в ноябре 2008 года, другая "дочка" "Синтерры" - "ПетерСтар" - консолидировала 100% акций ОАО "Псковская городская телефонная сеть", скупив недостающие до полного контроля 9,86% акций псковского оператора у "Северо-Западного Телекома" (6,64%) и 40 физлиц. А в октябре "ПетерСтар" скупил 100% акций интернет-провайдера "Интернет-Архангельск", работающего в Вологде, Архангельске, Ярославле и Северодвинске.

"Синтерра" стала также автором самой крупной и самой курьезной сделок за всю кризисную эпоху. В марте 2009 года она приобрела у структур АФК "Система" 50% голосующих акций крупного национального оператора "Межрегиональный ТранзитТелеком" (МТТ), а весной 2009 года докупила еще 25% акций ОАО "МТТ" у кипрского офшора Danmax Джеффри Гальмонда. Последние 25% МТТ пока находятся в руках другого офшора - Eventis Telecom, который перешел от бывшего "питерского связиста" Владимира Андросика к неприметному петербургскому бизнесмену Глебу Огнянникову. Курьезом в апреле 2009 года стала продажа "Синтеррой" (строго говоря, ее материнской компанией Synterra Cyprus Ltd) 51% акций ЗАО "ЕвроТел" группе "Эффортел" Леонида Меламеда. Дело в том, что "Синтерра" купила 51% акций этого владельца волоконно-оптических линий в разных частях России лишь в ноябре 2007 года у структур того же Меламеда, но, видимо, за полтора года так и не смогла наладить совместный бизнес с этим выходцем из РАО "ЕЭС". Единственное, что выгадала "Синтерра" при обратной продаже "ЕвроТела" - добилась возможности выкупить у него волокна в кабеле Петербург-Петрозаводск-Мурманск.

Кризис жанра

Проявления экономического кризиса в телекоме оказались минимальными. Действительно завалились лишь две структуры - "Росвеб" и "Эффортел". Холдинг "Росвеб", контролирующий десяток компаний в Москве, Подмосковье и Петербурге, включая крупнейшую "дочку" "Арктел", в марте за долги перешел под управление ООО "ОРСИ Групп". Группа "Эффортел", запутанная структура которой объединяет три десятка операторов, разогнала 60% персонала в корпоративном центре и задумала банкротство ОАО "Эффортел", на котором висит 673,9 млн руб. долга (при выручке за 2008 год чуть более 406 млн руб.).

Еще одним проявлением кризиса можно считать выход из проекта "Электро-Ком" венчурного фонда Intel Capital, а также фонда Russian Technologies (который в конце 2008 года ликвидировал его основной владелец - "Альфа-Групп"). Intel Capital и Russian Technologies продали свои доли в этом PLC-проекте (Интернет по электрическим проводам) двум другим партнерам по "Электро-Кому" - фирме Fora Invest Ltd и фонду Barings Venture Capital Partners, которые теперь делят компанию в пропорции 55/45.

Крупные сделки в российском телекоме еще могут состояться в 2009 году, но все они - нерыночные. МТС, хоть и не по своей воле, скорее всего купит "Комстар-ОТС" - этого хочет их общий основной акционер - АФК "Система". "МегаФон", весьма вероятно, купит "Синтерру", но сотовая компания не столь хочет ее приобрести, как акционер "Синтерры" - побыстрее от нее избавиться. До конца года может начаться масштабная реорганизация "Связьинвеста" и его дочерних компаний, но в этой истории все зависит от амбиций и интересов государственных чиновников. План реформирования "Связьинвеста" должен быть представлен в сентябре 2009 года

Стандарт №07(78) июль 2009

2016г - 140-ЛЕТИЕ ТЕЛЕФОННОЙ СВЯЗИ

14 февраля 1876 года Александр Грэхем Белл подал заявку в патентное ведомство США на изобретение прибора, ставшего прототипом современного телефона
7 марта 1876 года в США Александр Белл получил патент под номером 174,465 на изобретенный им телефонный аппарат или, как звучит в самом документе, на «усовершенствованную модель телеграфа». Именно этот патент утверждал его права как автора «способа, а также устройства для телеграфной передачи голосовых или других звуков посредством волнообразных электрических колебаний, подобных по форме колебаниям воздуха, которые сопровождают звуки речи либо другие звуки».

Источник: http://www.calend.ru/event/4749/

"И тогда я прокричал в рупор следующее предложение: "Мистер Ватсон, идите сюда, мне нужно вас видеть". К моему восторгу, он пришел и объявил, что слышал и понял все, сказанное мной",— так описал первый в истории человечества телефонный разговор со своим помощником, состоявшийся 10 марта 1876 года, изобретатель и бизнесмен Александр Белл.
Подробнее: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2912036

Improvement in telegraphy - US 174465 A

История телекома

История телекома

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