Packet switching
Conmutación de paquetes
- Date
- 1964-1965 · confidence high
- Place
- RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, United States, and NPL, Teddington, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Paul Baran (RAND), Donald Davies (NPL) and Leonard Kleinrock (MIT, queueing theory)
- People
- 👤 Donald Davies1924–2000👤 Leonard Kleinrock1934–👤 Paul Baran1926–2011
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The idea of breaking messages into packets that travel independent routes through a distributed network with no centre. Conceived to survive a nuclear attack, it is the working principle of the internet.
Baran, Davies and Kleinrock developed the idea independently; Davies coined the term packet.
What it led to
- ARPANET and the internet
- Fault-tolerant, decentralised networks
- Voice-over-IP telephony and the convergence of voice and data
Built on
- Time-sharing operating system (CTSS, Multics)1961
- telephone circuit switching
- queueing theory