INF 390N.1
Doty
Fall 2009
A BRIEF HISTORY OF U.S. FEDERAL COMPUTER NETWORKING INITIATIVES
ARPANET (1969) – packet switching, unreliable network (two, interrelated meanings); sharing
data sets, expertise, computational resources, software
NSF Supercomputer Centers/NCAR (1984) – Pittsburgh, Urbana-Champaign (Illinois), San
Diego, Cornell University, Princeton (New Jersey) and Boulder (Colorado)
NSFNET (1985) – to connect NSF supercomputer centers and NCAR to ARPANET sites; three
levels: national backbone, regional and disciplinary/supercomputer nets, and campus nets
(academic and commercial)
Internet (1983) – TCP/IP-compliant network of networks, common name and address spaces
BITNET (c. 1981) – academic/higher education network
NREN and the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 (PL 102-194) -- NRN ---> NREN; Grand
Challenges (computationally intensive research applications), e.g., the Human Genome Project
and investigations of global warming
NII – conflict among ideals and visions for implementation, e.g., democratizing information
utility, competitive marketplace for entertainment and other products, high-tech research test bed
Emergence of Department of Commerce as dominant policy actor, especially in the Information
Infrastructure Task Force (1994+) and NTIA
Privatization, commercialization, and competition as networking watchwords –
Telecommunications Act of 1996 (PL 104-104)
NSF out of networking business except for supercomputing and support of research (c. 1995);
changed over to MERIT/MCI
More recent initiatives:
Internet2 (http://www.internet2.edu/) and Abilene Backbone Network
(http://abilene.internet2.edu/)
National Lambda Rail (http://www.nlr.net/)
vBNS – very High Performance Backbone Network Service, used mostly by governmentsponsored researchers; now defunct
From
computer science experiment to social experiment
information network to communication network
science network to education network to entertainment network
telecommunications engineering research project to information utility
government-aggregated non-profit market to wider marketplace
Public policy rationale given for U.S. public $$$ to support high-tech research:
(1) facilitate competitiveness across the economy
(2) to help computing, telecommunications, cryptographic, and other businesses succeed
(3) to help support U.S. hegemony in defense and surveillance technologies.