Michael Silverton is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

Biography

Silverton built the first all-optical

Ethernet in the first mile Ethernet in the first mile (EFM) refers to using one of the Ethernet family of computer network technologies between a telecommunications company and a customer's premises. From the customer's point of view, it is their first mile, although from th ...

networks in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

in 1999 to 2000, as the result of research and work that first began in 1991 in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

. Fiberhood Networks, Inc, a

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

company championed by Silverton, and co-founded Sinuhe Hardegree and Jonathan Usuka, along with Christopher Lein, Chris Minchberg, Keith Cooley, and Joe Villareal, failed financially, but the engineering success and ensuing industry enthusiasm from the likes of Pirelli, Corning, France Telecom, Telstra,

SBC Communications The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ...

, and industry standards groups like the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, all validated a proof of concept for this first field-operational implementation of its kind. The Information superhighway term was used in the

National Information Infrastructure The National Information Infrastructure (NII) was the product of the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. It was a telecommunications policy buzzword, which was popularized during the Clinton Administration under the leadership of Vice-President ...

effort of the 1990s. Silverton's 1997

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

thesis described an "Information Superdriveway", extending early analogies of "internet as roadway" connecting consumers to the information city streets and global superhighways. The company existed from about 1998 through 2001. It partnered with

PAIX ''Paix'' is the fourth studio album by French singer Catherine Ribeiro and her third with the band Alpes. It was originally released in 1972 by Philips Records. The album integrates the group's original folk-oriented sound within the progr ...

, an early Palo Alto Internet exchange. In 1999 Silverton became founding director of the Open Access Alliance of the Bay Area, a group advocating for independent

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s. In 2001 the company still planned to expand. Silverton presented his experience to the

(EFM) study group in March 2001. After several years of industry collaboration, the standard was published in June 2004. In 2004 he was interviewed as an early adopter of

voice over Internet Protocol Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

(VoIP) technology.

References

External links

* People from Palo Alto, California Stanford University alumni American computer businesspeople Internet pioneers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-business-bio-stub