Roberts later was CEO of the commercial packet-switching network
Telenet, the first
public data network in North America.
Early life and education
Roberts, who was known as Larry, was born and raised in
Westport, Connecticut.[7] He was the son of Elizabeth (Gilman) and Elliott John Roberts, both of whom had doctorates in
chemistry. It is said that during his youth, he built a
Tesla coil, assembled a television, and designed a telephone network built from transistors for his parents'
Girl Scout camp.[8]
Roberts' plan for the ARPANET was the first wide area packet-switching network with distributed control, similar to Donald Davies' 1965 design.[22] ARPA issued a
request for quotation (RFQ) to build the system, which was awarded to
Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). Significant aspects of the networks's operation including routing, flow control, software design and network control were developed by the BBN
IMP team, which included
Bob Kahn.[10] Roberts managed its implementation and contracted with
Leonard Kleinrock in 1968 to carry out mathematical modelling of the packet-switched network's performance.[23] Roberts engaged Howard Frank to consult on the topological design of the network. Frank made recommendations to increase throughput and reduce costs in a scaled-up network.[24] When Robert Taylor was sent to
Vietnam in 1969 and then resigned, Roberts became director of the IPTO.
In 1970, he proposed to
NPL's Donald Davies that the two organizations connect their networks via a satellite link. This original proposal proved infeasible, but in 1971
Peter Kirstein agreed to Roberts' proposal to connect his research group at
University College London (UCL) instead. UCL provided interconnection with
British academic networks, forming the first international
resource sharing network.[25] Roberts proposed in 1973 that it would be possible to use a satellite's 64 kilobit/second link as a medium shared by multiple satellite earth stations within the beam's footprint. This was implemented later by
Bob Kahn, and resulted in
SATNET.
The
Purdy Polynomial hash algorithm was developed for the ARPANET to protect passwords in 1971 at the request of Roberts.
Roberts approached AT&T in the early 1970s about taking over the ARPANET to offer a public packet switched service but they declined.[26]
Telenet
In 1973, Roberts left ARPA to join BBN's effort to commercialize the nascent packet-switching technology in the form of
Telenet,[27] the first FCC-licensed
public data network in the United States. He was its
CEO from 1973 to 1980. Roberts joined the international effort to standardize a protocol for packet switching based on
virtual circuits shortly before it was finalized.[28][29] Telenet converted to the
X.25 protocol, which was adopted by
PTTs across North America and Europe for
public data networks in the mid-late 1970s.[30] Roberts promoted this approach over the
datagram approach in
TCP/IP being pursued by ARPA, which he described as "oversold" in 1978.[10]
Later career
In 1983 he joined
DHL Corporation as President. At the time, he predicted bandwidths would go down driven by voice compression technology.[31]
He was CEO of NetExpress, an
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) equipment company, from 1983 to 1993. Roberts was president of ATM Systems from 1993 to 1998. He was chairman and CTO of Caspian Networks, but left in early 2004; Caspian ceased operation in late 2006.[32]
As of 2011[update], Roberts was the founder and chairman of Anagran Inc. Anagran continues work in the same area as Caspian: IP flow management with improved
quality of service for the Internet.[33]
Roberts married and divorced four times. At the time of his death, his partner was physician Tedde Rinker.[7] Roberts died at his California home from a heart attack on December 26, 2018.[7][35]
Awards and honors
IEEEHarry H. Goode Memorial Award (1976 ), "In recognition of his contributions to the architectural design of computer-communication systems, his leadership in creating a fertile research environment leading to advances in computer and satellite communications techniques, his role in the establishment of standard international communication protocols and procedures, and his accomplishments in development and demonstration of packet switching technology and the ensuing networks which grew out of this work."[36]
Member, National Academy of Engineering (1978)[37]
IEEE
W. Wallace McDowell Award (1990), "For architecting packet switching technology and bringing it into practical use by means of the ARPA network."[37][38]
IEEE Internet Award (2000) For "early, preeminent contributions in conceiving, analyzing and demonstrating packet-switching networks, the foundation technology of the Internet."[37][40]
International Engineering Consortium Fellow Award (2001)[37]
Principe de Asturias Award 2002 in Spain "for designing and implementing a system that is changing the world by providing previously unthought of opportunities for social and scientific progress."[42]
NEC C&C Award (2005) in Japan "For Contributions to Establishing the Foundation of Today's Internet Technology through ... the Design and Development of ARPANET and Other Early Computer Networks that were Part of the Initial Internet."[43]
^Abbate, Jane (1999).
Inventing the Internet. MIT Press. p. 3.
ISBN978-0262261333. The manager of the ARPANET project, Lawrence Roberts, assembled a large team of computer scientists ... and he drew on the ideas of network experimenters in the United States and the United Kingdom.
^"A Flaw In The Design". The Washington Post. May 30, 2015. Historians credit seminal insights to Welsh scientist Donald W. Davies and American engineer Paul Baran
^Waldrop, M. Mitchell (2018).
The Dream Machine. Stripe Press. pp. 285–6.
ISBN978-1-953953-36-0. Oops. Roberts knew Baran slightly and had in fact had lunch with him during a visit to RAND the previous February. But he certainly didn't remember any discussion of networks. How could he have missed something like that?
^O'Neill, Judy (March 5, 1990).
"An Interview with PAUL BARAN"(PDF). p. 37. On Tuesday, 28 February 1967 I find a notation on my calendar for 12:00 noon Dr. L. Roberts.
^Trevor Harris, University of Wales (2009).
"Who is the Father of the Internet?". Variety in Mass Communication Research. Archived from
the original on October 10, 2021. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
^Rybczynski, Tony (2009). "Commercialization of packet switching (1975-1985): A Canadian perspective [History of Communications]". IEEE Communications Magazine. 47 (12): 26–31.
doi:
10.1109/MCOM.2009.5350364.
ISSN1558-1896.
S2CID23243636.
^Mathison, Stuart L.; Roberts, Lawrence G.; Walker, Philip M. (2012). "The history of telenet and the commercialization of packet switching in the U.S.". IEEE Communications Magazine. 50 (5): 28–45.
doi:
10.1109/MCOM.2012.6194380.
ISSN1558-1896.
S2CID206453987.
^Enterprise, I. D. G. (March 14, 1983).
Computerworld. IDG Enterprise. p. 71.
^Fang, Bingxing (2018). Cyberspace Sovereignty: Reflections on building a community of common future in cyberspace.
Springer Nature. p. 154.
ISBN978-9811303203.
^"The Internet is one of the most eloquent examples of the benefits that accrue from scientific research and a commitment to technological innovation. A myriad of people and institutions were involved in this work. The jury wishes to acknowledge them all in awarding the prize to the four leaders of so extraordinary a development."José Luis Álvarez Margaride; Ernesto Carmona Guzmán; et al. (May 23, 2002).
"Minutes of the Jury – Technical and Scientific Research 2002".
Fundación Príncipe de Asturias. Archived from
the original on November 21, 2008. Retrieved April 10, 2008.
Oral history interview with Lawrence G. Roberts.
Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Roberts directed the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) during 1968–1973 and was later chief operating officer of Network Express. The interview focuses on IPTO and the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Much of Roberts's description of the work of ARPA and IPTO is set within the context of his interactions with Congress on budget matters. Topics include J. C. R. Licklider, Ivan Sutherland,
Stephen J. Lukasik, Wesley Clark, ARPA and IPTO support of research in computer science, computer networks, and artificial intelligence, the ARPANET, the involvement of universities with ARPA and IPTO.