Cybertelecom Federal Internet Law & Policy An Educational Project

Internet History :: 1990s

1990

ARPAnet is terminated on Feb. 28, 1990. [Babbage 15] [Living Internet ARPANET] [Living Internet NSFNET] Networks that were connected to ARPANet had migrated to NSFNET. The transition from ARPANET (DOD) to NSFNET (NSF) was complete.

Experimental mail relay at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives is hooked up to the Internet. [Netvalley] Other email services follow suit.

D Waitzman, RFC 1149 Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers (1 April 1990) (aka Internet over Pigeon)

Federal Research Internet Coordinating Committee reorganized as the Federal Networking Council. [Salus p. 207] [Cerf 1160]

1991

Trojan Room Coffee Pot goes online (first webcam)

"In February 1991, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ("NASA") and the Department of Energy ("DOE") issued a request for proposals for provision of a network that will primarily serve to connect laboratories conducting research for those agencies. The network will operate at T3 in 1993, 155 mbps in 1994, and 622 mbps in 1995. In August 1992 NASA/DOE announced their intention to award a contract. Under the contract, the network will cost $50 million over five years at T3, with the cost of the higher speeds to be determined later." [NSF Inspector General Report, Sec. V.C.1]

High-Performance Computing Act (December 9, 1991) (sponsored by Al Gore)

Section 3 purpose

The purpose of this act is to help ensure the continued leadership by the United States and high-performance computing and its applications by --

A. Expanding Federal support for research, development, and application of high performance computing in order to --

1. Establish a high capacity and high speed National Research and Education Network;

2. Expand the number of researchers, educators, and students with training in high-performance computing and access to high-performance computing resources;

3. promote the further development of an information infrastructure of databases, services, access mechanisms, and research facilities available for use throughout the network;

1992

Internet Society formed. Internet Activities Board is renamed the Internet Architecture Board. ISOC supports the IAB and the IETF. [Kessler]

"The Internet Society was formed in 1992 by the private sector to help promote the evolution of the Internet, including maintenance of the Internet standards process. In 1992, the IAB was reconstituted as the Internet Architecture Board, which became part of the Internet Society. It delegated its decision-making responsibility on Internet standards to the leadership of the IETF, known as the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). While not a part of the Internet Society, the IETF produces technical specficiations as possible candidates for future protocols. The Internet Society now maintains the Internet Standard Process, and the work of the IETF is carried out under its auspices." [Kahn, Role of Govt]

Robert Kahn's account is interestings because, at about the same time, there were a number of other voices overstating the role and authority of the Internet Society:

• J Reynolds, J Postel, IETF RFC 1700, Assigned Numbers (Oct 1994) ("The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols. The IANA is chartered by the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Federal Network Council (FNC) to act as the clearinghouse to assign and coordinate the use of numerous Internet protocol parameters.")
• The IANA website at one point read: "The IANA is chartered by the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Federal Network Council (FNC) to act as the clearinghouse to assign and coordinate the use of the numerous Internet protocol parameters." [Rony p 122]
• See also a much bolder statement by E Krol, E Hoffman, RFC 1462, FYI on "What is the Internet"? p 4 (May 1993) ("The ultimate authority for where the Internet is going rests with the Internet Society, or ISOC.")

The Internet Society (ISOC) was not founded until about 1991 and could not be the source of authority for IANA or the Internet. ISOC is a nonprofit US corporation located in Northern Virginia, founded by Internet professionals, and had no authority over Internet resources to delegate.

In current discussions, notions of Internet authority being derived from ISOC have been dropped.

NEARNET agrees that BBN will take over operations of the NEARNET network. [MIT]

NYSERnet sponsors conference Network Access for All: Learn, Teach, Collaborate [NYSERnet History]

1993

High Performance Computing Mopdernization Program (DOD) starts

1994

North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) chartered. [Merit History]

BBN acquires Bay Area Regional Research Network (BARRNET) [Salus p 203]

NYSERnet establishes the NYSERnet Internet Training and Education Center, the first Internet training center. [NYSERnet History]

MIDNET was acquired by Global Internet Network Services. [MIDNET]

NYSERnet begins to provide Internet access to K-12 schools and libraries. [NYSERnet History]

NSF 93-52 cooperative agreement solicitation for vBNS awarded to MCI

1995

Federal Networking Council chartered.

Manitoba Regional Advanced Network (MRNet) established

Windows 95 has IP stack built into it.

April: vBNS (very high performance Backbone Network Service) (NSF) goes online (as part of Al Gore's High Performance Computing Act) high bandwidth network for research applications

NSFNET Decommissioned.

April: Cannon

1996

Telecommunications Act (including Communications Decency Act)

March: NSF announces solicitation NSF 96-64 Connections to the Internet, for connections to the vBNS

Internet2 announced. [Merit History]

NYSERnet spins off the commercial venture AppliedTheory. [NYSERnet History]

VERIO Established [VERIO 10 Year Anniversary]

DirectPC - Internet access via satellite downlink and dialup uplink.

1997

VERIO acquires Global Internet network services [MIDNET]

NSF issue $1 million grant to MERIT, MSU, and U-M in order to interconnect to a very high speed Backbone Network Service. [Merit History]

Cybertelecom goes online

After 14 years in existence, the Federal Networking Council is disbanded and its responsibilities are passed on to Large Scale Networking group of the Computing, Information and Communications. [FNC Archive]

NYSERnet launches NYSERnet 2000, an OC12 statewide network to interconnect with the new Internet2. [NYSERnet History]

1999

Larry Roberts founds Caspain Networks [Business Week 04]

Y2K

Commercial Internet eXchange

1990:

"At the same time that privately owned networks started appearing, general commercial activity on the NSFNET was still prohibited by an Acceptable Use Policy. Thus, the expanding number of privately owned networks were effectively precluded from exchanging commercial data traffic with each other using the NSFNET backbone. " [FTC Staff Report 2007 p 18]

UUNET, PSInet (William Schrader), and CERFnet (Susan Estrada) meet in order to set up the Commercial Internet eXchange, the first commercial internet peering point, which permitting traffic to be exchange which could not be carried over the NSFNET. [CIX Router Timeline] The creation of CIX was announced February 14, at the United States Congress Office of Technology Assessment. [Cook pt 3]

1991:

Aug 2, the Commercial Internet eXchange was incorporated as a 501(c)(6) trade association. [FTC Staff Report 2007 p 18] [Cook pt 3] Members of CIX signed onto the CIX Router Agreement which stated in part:

Member agrees that it shall eXchange network traffic freely with all other CIX members that have access to and use of the CIX NAP ("Participating Members") without payment of settlement fees. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the preceding sentence, if a connectivity or routing problem caused by a Participating Member is adversely affecting the stability of Member's routing system, then, after delivering advance notice to CIX in a commercially reasonable time period of such problem, Member shall have the right to suspend the exchange of data traffic with such Participating Member until such time as the problem is alleviated.

[CIX Router Agreement ¶ 2] Membership in CIX was a flat $10,000. [Cook pt 3]

The CIX established the business model for the settlement-free exchange of Internet traffic between Network Service Providers. From an engineering perspective that was an important precursor to the Internet interconnection architecture that followed such as the Metropolitan Area Ethernet(MAE) and the NSF sponsored Network Access Points (NAPs) that were established for the transition of the NSFNET traffic to competing service providers that included Sprint, ANS, and MCI.

[Wikipedia]

CIX router goes online. [CIX Router Timeline] While the CIX router would stay online for ten years, it was quickly superceded by the NAPs set up by NSFNET that became the MAEs, and private bilaterial interconnection .

2000

NSF / MCI cooperative agreement for vBNS expired. Most traffic migrated to Internet2. vBNS

2001

CIX router shutdown. [CIX Router Timeline]

Wikipedia launched

DREN contract awarded to MCI (now Verizon)

2003

CREN (successor to CSNET) shuts down [CREN History]

2005

Smithsonian Museum acquires the CISCO 7500 CIX Router. [Farooq Hussain]