Tom Standage's article, "The 19th-Century Internet" [August/September
2002], proves that the Internet is not a uniquely potent new technology.
One can even go further back, and find analogies to the Internet in the
development of what is derisively known as snail mail. This historical
evidence, had it been paid attention to, might have helped temper the
irrational exuberance that inflated the Internet bubble and led to the
high-tech crash of 2000-2001.

The one point where Standage's article may be criticized is for implicitly
equating the Internet with the Web. The Internet is much more than the Web.
By many measures e-mail is still the "killer app," more important to users
than the Web. Further, by the formal definition, the Internet is the
collection of interconnected networks that use the Internet protocol. As
such it is far more adoptable than the electric telegraph.

Standage is surely right that mobile devices will play a key role in the
evolution of communications. Yet most mobile devices being developed today
rely on the Internet protocol. Hence, the mobile Internet is likely to
represent a gradual evolution of the current Internet, and not a new
technology. The electric telegraph was overshadowed and ultimately
(although only after many decades) eliminated by the telephone, a
considerably different service.

The Internet has succeeded primarily because of its flexibility, which
allowed innovation to flourish. This flexibility will likely enable it to
absorb new services, just as it is in the process of absorbing the
telephone. Thus the dominant communication system for many decades is
likely to continue being called the Internet, even if it does not resemble
the current Internet to the users.

--Andrew Odlyzko
University of Minnesota
Digital Technology Center