"Father of the Internet" Jonathan Postel dead at 55



LOS ANGELES(Reuters) - Jonathan Postel, one of a handful of people who 30
years ago built the global computer network that is today's Internet, has
died at the age of 55.

Friends and colleagues of Postel said he died in a Santa Monica, Calif.,
hospital over the weekend from complications following surgery on a leaking
heart valve.

Postel, who was often called "the father of the Internet," began his work
linking computers back in the 1960s when he was a graduate student at the
University of California at Los Angeles.

As the Internet grew in recent years, he was instrumental in managing many
of the increasingly complex technical details that helped keep online
communications running relatively smoothly.

He served as director of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and
developed a complex number and naming system that matched popular Internet
addresses with numerical addresses computers could read. The system
effectively instructed computers where to route traffic and gave Internet
users an easy way to log on to different Web sites.

To non-technical people, Postal's work may have seemed mundane, but it was
his attention to all the finer details of routing information through
cyberspace that helped fuel the phenomenal growth of the network in recent
years.

Although when he began his work the Internet was a little-known network
used mainly by academic types, he helped steer its evolution into a popular
consumer device that was easy for almost anyone to use, even when they had
little understanding of computers.

"Jon Postel was an important historical figure in the development of the
Internet," one of his colleagues, Network Solutions Inc. Chief Executive
Officer Gabe Battista, said in a statement.

"His work over the past decades played a significant part in the worldwide
growth and development of the Internet as we know it today," he said.

Postel remained active in Internet policy matters up until his
hospitalization. As recently as a few weeks ago, he had submitted a plan to
the Clinton administration for a new worldwide Internet address system.