Founder of the Internet 

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Papers by Lawrence G. Roberts

Internet

Internet Chronology , A factually correct chronology of the early history of the Internet with future projections. 8/29/97
Internet History Slides , Slides used at SIGCOMM Presentation, Boston, August 31, 1999
Internet History Slides #2 , More Slides used at SIGCOMM Presentation, Boston, August 31, 1999
Picture of Roberts in 1969 , When building Internet
Judgement Call , in Data Communications, April 1999
A Brief History of the Internet , Leiner, Cerf, Clark. Kahn, Kleinrock, Lynch, Postel, Roberts, Wolff
Packet Switching Or Optical Switching? IEEE Internet Computing - Jan/Feb 2000
Internet Growth Trends IEEE Computer - Internet Watch - January 2000

Silicon Vallew Radio Interview in 1998
Who Really Invented The Net? USA Today - 9/1/99
ACM SIGCOMM Award 1999

Explicit Rate

Can ABR Service Replace VBR Service in ATM Networks , Interop, March 1995

Buffer Requirements and Cell Loss Rate for ATM ABR , Interop, April 1996

Second Generation Flow Control - Explicit Rate Traffic Management For ATM ,  Includes Buffer Size and Loss Analysis, May 1995

Explicit Rate Flow Control , A Detailed examination of the benefits of Explicit Rate Flow Control. 4/29/97

Explicit Rate vs TCP , A comparison of the performance of Explicit Rate and TCP flow control. 7/30/97

Cells In Frames , An article on CIF,  3/19/97

Request for Coordination of Cells In Frames Specification , ATM Forum Submission, 8/19/96

94-0448 Network to Source Rate Based Flow Control, Original Submission to ATM Forum on Explicit Rate Flow Control, May 1994

Lawrence G. Roberts is currently Chairman and CTO of Packetcom, Inc. Packetcom is designing advanced IP router/switches with improved QoS for the Internet.

Dr. Roberts has B.S., M.S., and PhD. Degrees from MIT.  In 1967 he joined ARPA to manage a wide range of computer-communication research and development for the government. While at ARPA he was responsible for the design, initiation, planning and development of ARPANET, the world's first major packet network, now called the Internet.

After ARPA, Dr. Roberts founded the world’s first packet data communications carrier, Telenet, and was the CEO from 1973 to 1980. Telenet was sold to GTE in 1979 and subsequently became the data division of Sprint. In 1982, Dr. Roberts became President and CEO of DHL Corporation. From 1983 to 1993, Dr. Roberts was Chairman and CEO of NetExpress, Inc., an electronics company specializing in packetized facsimile and ATM equipment.

From 1993 to 1998 Dr. Roberts was President of ATM Systems, a division of Connectware, Inc., an AMP company. At ATM Systems he has designed an advanced ATM Enterprise Switch with Explicit Rate ABR for the Enterprise and carrier network market and an Ethernet switch with QOS and Explicit Rate flow control.  He proposed explicit rate to the ATM Forum in 1994 and spearheaded its development into the ATM Forum recommendation TM 4.0 in 1996. He has also led the development of a protocol for ATM over Ethernet called Cells In Frames.

Dr. Roberts has received numerous awards for his work, including the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Harry Goode Memorial Award from the American Federation of Information Processing, the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award, the Interface Conference Award, and, in 1982, the L.M. Ericsson prize for research in data communications. In 1992, he was awarded from the IEEE Computer Society  W. Wallace McDowell Award. In 1998 he received the ACM SIGCOMM communications award.