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Telecommunications Twenty years on: the network that became the Internet
Telecommunications Twenty years on: the network that became the Internet | Twenty years on: the network that became the Internet |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Wednesday, 28 November 2007 | |
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NSFNet started life in 1985 connecting the five NSF university-based supercomputer centres. However its connection with ARPANet immediately put into the major leagues of networking. Significantly NSF decided not to restrict NSFNet to supercomputer researchers but to open it to all academic users. The other wide-area networks (all government-owned) supported mere handfuls of specialised contractors and researchers. Usage grew rapidly and within a year NSF was planing an upgrade. Steve Wolff, then program director for NSFNet, recalled later that "[private sector involvement] had to come, because it was obvious that if it didn't come in a coordinated way, it would come in a haphazard way, and the academic community would remain aloof, on the margin. That's the wrong model—multiple networks again, rather than a single Internet. There had to be commercial activity to help support networking, to help build volume on the network. That would get the cost down for everybody, including the academic community, which is what NSF was supposed to be doing." |
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