to enumerate the benefits of the sita network, monniot spent little time talking about packet switching. " the main benefit," he said, " is that the users share expensive communication channels with others, and thereby reduces his costs considerable. these savings are particularly dramatic in europe. it costs roughly $2.000 a month to lease a 3khz voicegrade line between paris and geneva; that's about equal to the distance between washington state and new york city." (at&t reports that its price for a similar circuit between the latter two points is about $400/month, exclusive of termination charges | datamation, sita: rating a packet switched network, march 1974

sita, a worldwide airline communication consortium, has launched its network around 1967. its called an early, primitive packet switching network.

j.w. halina 1963, paul baran 1964, donald w.davies, 1967

,

Future Computer Networks If we look forward to the year 2000, based on historical trends computers will be about 500 times cheaper per computation than today. Almost all devices in the home, office or plant will have complex computers incorporated into them. Simple local area network facilities like shielded twisted pair will connect the majority of these together and a gateway will connect this local network to the public telecommunication system over 57 (hopefully a revised and truly integrated) ISDN facility.

Distinctions as to which device is the phone may become difficult because many of the device-computers may use the voice network from time to time for warnings, ordering, and certaintly in assisting us to find the party to whom we wish to talk. Phone service today is in great need of automation; we waste large amounts of time non-productively answering and calling to find people. Thus as the telecommunications network brings data and voice together home and office automation will integrate them. | larry roberts, the arpanet and computer networks, acm, 1986