Catenet is an obsolete term for a system of packet-switched

Packet switching

Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably sized blocks, called packets. Packet switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams over a shared network...

 communication networks interconnected via gateway

Gateway (telecommunications)

In telecommunications, the term gateway has the following meaning:*In a communications network, a network node equipped for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols....

s.

The term was coined by Louis Pouzin

Louis Pouzin

Louis Pouzin invented the datagram and designed an early packet communications network, CYCLADES...

, a pioneer in packet-switching technology and founder of the CYCLADES

CYCLADES

The CYCLADES packet switching network was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was developed to explore alternatives to the ARPANET design and to support network research generally...

 network, at a time when network meant what is now called a local area network

Local area network

A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...

. Catenet was the concept of linking these networks into a network of networks with specifications for compatibility of addressing and routing. The term catenet was gradually displaced by the short-form of the term internetwork, internet (lower-case i), when the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

 replaced earlier protocols on the ARPANET

ARPANET

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...

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