What if I proposed to you that the best way to have a phone conversation over the internet would be to break up each voice message into a number of small packets, send them off by different routes, assemble them at the end, and have a conversation in real time? Does this sound like a nutty idea? Yet this is the way VOIP (voice over internet protocol) works today on your Comcast phone line, or over Skype, or anywhere else where you send voice or video over the internet.
It certainly seemed fanciful back in 1958, when my friend Len Kleinrock developed his theory of packets, which he published as his PhD thesis with the great Claude Shannon as his adviser. Check the video to hear Len's explanation of how he developed and proved his theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLHJB2bhmgB7cmeJVqnzHg1pWYOB1z2nLn&v=qsgrtrwydjw#t=57
