T1-Speed Internet Backbone Passes Into History
Thomas Lapp
note: Originally From: Ellen....@um.cc.umich.edu. I do not know
who the author of the press release is, but wouldn't be surprised if
it didn't originate with someone at Merit, since they are in Michigan.
Tom)
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, December 2, 1992
National Science Foundation Network achieves major milestone
T-1 NSFNET now part of Internet history
(Wednesday, Dec. 2) Like it's predecessors, the ARPANET and the 56
Kbps National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET), the T-1 NSFNET
passed into history today when the last router was moved to connect to
the T-3 backbone service. As of 12:01 a.m. EST on Wednesday, December
2, the T-1 NSFNET backbone is no more -- its circuits are turned off
-- marking the beginning of a new networking era.
When first implemented just over four years ago, the T-1 (1.5 Mbps)
NSFNET backbone was state-of-the-art for the Internet, deploying new
levels of speed and management. With improvements in routing
technology, the Internet moved from an experimental service to a
production commodity. Demands for higher speed services and increasing
backbone traffic led to the T-3 (45 Mbps) backbone service implemented
over the Advanced Network & Services, Inc. Network (ANSnet) that has
replaced the older T-1 NSFNET technology. The growth of NSFNET
promoted a global internetworking industry estimated as generating
billions of dollars in annual revenues.
In five years, the communications capacity of NSFNET has expanded
almost 700 times through the implementation of leading-edge
technologies, growing from 56 Kbps to T-3. Today the network's
backbone service carries data at the equivalent of 1,400 pages of
single-spaced, typed text per second. This means the information in a
20-volume encyclopedia can be sent across the network in under 23
seconds!
Today every major research, graduate, and four-year university is tied
together through NSFNET, along with private and federal research
institutions and industries. Over 700 colleges and universities are
connected representing 80 percent of the nation's student population
and 90 percent of the nation's federally sponsored research. Further,
NSFNET provides access to hundreds of high schools, libraries,
community colleges, and smaller educational institutions. With over
1,000 public and private research and education institutions, NSFNET
links an estimated 10 million users. As the commercial Internet has
grown, links are expanding between education and business communities
which are promoted through expanding connectivity.
Access to the network over the past five years has surpassed the most
optimistic visions projected for it. The National Science Foundation's
1987 solicitation for NSFNET said, "It is anticipated that over the
next five years NSFNET will reach more than 10,000 mathematicians,
scientists, and engineers at 200 or more campuses and other research
centers." After five years, these numbers have been more than exceeded
and network growth continues to be exponential.
A reflection of that growth is network traffic. Total NSFNET traffic
grew from 195 million packets in August 1988 to almost 24 billion in
November 1992, a 100-fold increase in four years. During November, the
network reached its first billion-packet-a-day mark. Network growth
increases an averages of 11 percent per month. The total number of
connected networks grew from fewer than 200 to over 7,500, of which
one-third are outside the United States. Today NSFNET makes it
possible to reach educators and researchers in over 75 countries
around the world. Recent surveys show over a million host computers
are connected to the Internet, with an even greater number of
individual users accessing those computers.
Meeting the challenges of building the central infrastructure for this
high-speed data communications network has been the focus of a joint
government, academic, and industrial partnership for the past five
years. Merit Network, Inc., in association with Advanced Network &
Services, Inc. (ANS), IBM, MCI, and the State of Michigan, has led
pioneering efforts to put in place a national network service through
a 1987 cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The
partnership deployed the T-1 network on schedule in July 1988, and
began the T-3 network service implemented over ANSnet in late 1990.
"The T-1 NSFNET project has been a remarkable adventure," said Stephen
S. Wolff, director of the National Science Foundation's Division of
Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure (DNCRI).
"It's an experiment whose success goes far beyond even the highest
hopes we had for it. Because of this program, it's now conceivable
that the U. S. can implement a network connecting every student and
teacher in the country -- from kindergarten to post-college -- before
the end of the century, revolutionizing education and research. Five
years ago, this seemed only a very distant dream."
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internet: thomas%mva...@udel.edu (home) <> la...@cdhub1.dnet.dupont.com (work)