Origin of Ethernet: A $1 Million Turing Award Winning Inventor's Journey

(Image: Andreu Veà, WiWiW.org, and Jordan Harrison)

Robert Metcalfe, an American engineer, recently received the Alan Turing award for inventing ethernet networking technology. Ethernet is still widely used by businesses due to its speed, reliability, security, and data quality, while Wi-Fi gains popularity. The technology, invented 50 years ago, is widely used at universities, schools, hospitals, government entities, and business offices.

Who is Robert Metcalfe?

Metcalfe was born on April 7, 1946, in New York, and is an engineer, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, professor, and writer. He is known for co-inventing Ethernet, co-founding 3Com Corporation, and introducing ‘Metcalfe’s Law.’ His father was a gyroscope test technician, and his mother was the secretary at Bay Shore High School, where he graduated in 1964.

Metcalfe graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and industrial management in 1969. In 1970, he earned a master's degree in applied mathematics from Harvard University, where he also earned his doctorate in computer science in 1973. His first thesis was the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which he advocated for. He worked with MIT's Project MAC, where he built hardware that connected the school after Harvard refused to connect the university to ARPANET. He revised the first version of his thesis, which was accepted after identifying, fixing and analyzing the ALOHA network. ALOHAnet was a wireless packet data network developed at the University of Hawaii that became operational in June 1971.

How did Metcalfe invent Ethernet?

Metcalfe co-invented Ethernet with David Boggs while working at Xerox PARC in 1973. The research and development company founded in 1969 by Jacob E. Goldman was making some of the first personal computers at the time. Metcalfe was tasked with building a networking system for PARC's own computers - a technology that could connect desktop machines across an office and send information between them. The goal was to enable all of PARC's computers to print with a new laser printer that Xerox was developing. Ethernet was patented in 1975, and in 1980, Metcalfe convinced Intel, Xerox, and Digital Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to work together to promote Ethernet as a standard. The technology became the open Ethernet standard in 1980 and an IEEE standard in 1985.

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In 1979, Metcalfe and others who had worked on Ethernet technology at Xerox PARC founded 3Com Corp, a company specializing in computer network products and services. The name 3Com stood for "Computer Communication Compatibility," reflecting its goal of developing network solutions for various standards and platforms, such as UNIX, TCP/IP, and Ethernet. 3Com became a public company in 1984 and introduced its network operating system. Hewlett-Packard acquired it for $2.7 billion in 2009.

What is the Metcalfe’s Law?

Metcalfe introduced the concept of Metcalfe's Law, which states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes. 

The law was first proposed by him around 1980 to promote the use of Ethernet. The idea behind this law is that a network becomes more useful and attractive as it connects more people and resources.