At the height of the Cold War, the United States wanted to have a network that could survive even a nuclear war. Used while the telephone network does not provide adequate stability (loss of only one large unit can divide the network into isolated areas). To solve the problem, the Ministry of Defense has asked the corporation RAND.
One of its employees, Paul Baran, drafted a distributed network. Due to the fact that at very large distances difficult to transmit the analog signal without distortion , it is suggested to transmit digital data packets. Pentagon liked his ideas, and he turned to the telephone company AT & T. AT & T rejected the idea Berena, saying that such a network can not be built.
October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launches the first artificial Earth satellite, thereby obtaining an advantage in space. In the United States decided that the money allocated by the Pentagon for research go to waste. It was decided to create a single scientific organization under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence - ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), which would be picked from universities and organizations offered the most promising projects and contracts on them.
Over time, the attention of the Director Larry Roberts attracted ARPA computer network. Intrigued by the idea of an expert Wesley Clark on the packet-switched network, he spoke at a symposium ACM SIGOPS with a report relating to this, in 1967. At the same symposium was presented a similar, but realized at the National Physical Laboratory in England system. Its implementation has shown that packet switching can be applied in practice. Director of ARPA went there with the intention of creating a similar in Americа