In the late 1960's, several government laboratories were connected together in the first wide-area computer network. In May of 1972, 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe developed Ethernet networking. It was a standard to allow computers to use a common networking access "language" to communicate with equipment from different vendors. It was based on packets, which are small fragments of data with individual control information. A block of data would be broken up into potentially millions of separate pieces, have control information added, and sent out onto the computer network as millions of small packages, or packets. .
Computers were not using the first generation optical network. There was no need for it. The bandwidth required between computers was extremely small because there were only a few computer nodes on the network. Furthermore, the size of information transmitted was small because at the time there were virtually no applications developed for computers. There was no streaming audio or video, no collaborative computing, no desktop publishing, no graphical user interface, and no Internet, as we know it today. .
First generation optical networks in place at the time were not designed for the bandwidth of today's computer networking and Internet. Eventually, a few applications for the computer were developed such as "telnet", which is tele- or remote networking, and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) used to transfer files as raw data. Information was transmitted electronically between devices and computer networking grew. The computer networking applications also grew, and required more speed and bandwidth increased. Optical networks were applied to computer networking to transmit the higher payloads in a shorter amount of time. Data, voice, and video applications were being developed for computers. .
The Internet Becomes Accessible.
In the 1980's, acoustic couplers (modems) were developed and manufactured by companies such as US Robotics and the telecommunications network was used to enable computer networking to virtually anyone who had a telephone line.