The broken network: The history and resiliency of infrastructure of the Telecom Italia (1994-1997)

The article deals with the history and the resiliency of the Socrate data network infrastructure launched, and never completed, by the Telecom Italia company in the 1990s. Through an historical analysis based on sources and in-depth interviews with key witnesses, this paper underlines the relevance of technical infrastructures, which are often underestimated in network histories. Relying on these sources, the article highlights the "resiliency" of past projects, their impact on digitization, and the lessons that can be learned from the histories of networking.