NSFNET

Broad access was necessary for a widely dispersed and frequently changing community of users. NSFNET became part of a hierarchical series of networks. Meanwhile, NSF supported the development of regional networks that could carry traffic from individual organizations, such as government agencies and universities, to the national backbone service. NSF commissioned Merit Network, MCI, IBM, and the State of Michigan to manage the NSFNET backbone project.

It was during this critical time that Al Gore entered the picture. Gore was roundly mocked in the press after he claimed that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" during a 1999 broadcast interview. In fact, during the late 1980s, Gore did give political support to a funding drive aimed at expanding NSFNET. Although Gore's "creation" claim was -- to put it mildly -- an exaggeration, the subsequent expansion helped spur the development of the modern-day Internet.

By the early 1990s, as commercial networks began to build their own backbone infrastructures and their own routing mechanisms, the public service furnished by NSFNET's backbone was turned over to the newer backbones and NSFNET was shut down. The scientific and research network continued as vBNS and, more recently, Internet2.

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More resources from around the web: - The NSF has an article called "NSF and the Internet: An Overview." - Merit Network provides an article about "Retiring the NSFNET Backbone Service: Chronicling the End of an Era." - The Internet Society describes the role of NSFNET in its history of the Internet. - Reason Magazine has an article, "Al Gore says he invented the Internet. What does he mean?"

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