UBS On-Air: Market Moves Top of the Morning: 250 years of US innovation - The internet
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Mar 28, 2026 Kevin Dennean, Technology and Telecom Equity Strategist at UBS CIO, traces the internet from Cold War roots to today. He spotlights packet switching, TCP/IP and Cisco’s role. He covers Netscape’s consumer breakthrough, DWDM and the dot‑com cycle. He closes with future waves: ultra‑fast optics, 6G, holography and networked AI.
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Packet Networking Origins During The Cold War
- The internet's core design came from Cold War-era packet networking to avoid single-point failures.
- Paul Baran's packet concept let data be broken into reroutable packets, enabling resilient, decentralized networks.
Convergence Of Key Technologies Built The Internet
- Multiple independent technologies converged to create the internet: low-loss fiber, TCP/IP, Ethernet, and routers.
- Cisco scaled routing hardware while Netscape's 1995 IPO brought a graphical web that opened the internet to consumers.
DWDM Sparked Massive Cost Declines And The Dot‑Com Crash
- Commercialization of DWDM massively cut cost per bit by allowing multiple light wavelengths on one fiber.
- Steve Alexander's DWDM rendered many prior network investments uneconomic and helped trigger the dot-com collapse.