The ARPA Network Design Decisions
Abstract A number of key decisions made in the design of the ARPA network over a five-year period serve as the context for an analysis of the fundamental properties and requirements of packet-switching networks and formulation of the fundamental criteria for evaluating network performance. The decisions described fall into the three major areas of network equipment design, store-and-forward subnetwork system design, and source-to-destination system design, and each decision is examined in detail.