The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a groundbreaking wide-area network established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1985, becoming operational in 1986. It quickly replaced ARPANET as the primary government network linking universities and research facilities across the United States. NSFNET served as the backbone of the early internet until its decommissioning in 1995, when it transitioned to the commercial internet infrastructure we know today.
NSF.net was registered on November 5, 1986, making it the third .net domain ever registered (after nordu.net in 1985 and broken.net in April 1986). The .net domain was part of the initial set of generic top-level domains defined in RFC 920 (October 1984) and was included in the first implementation of these domains.
Current Stewardship
My name is Dave Levine, and I acquired NSF.net on March 30, 2022. I'm incredibly honored to be the steward of this domain—a unique digital asset and an essential piece of internet history that I intend to preserve and maintain for years to come.
NSFNET was established in 1985 with the goal of connecting supercomputer centers across the United States.
The network became operational in 1986, connecting supercomputer centers at 56,000 bits per second.
NSF.net domain was registered on November 5, 1986, becoming the 3rd .net domain in history.
Network Expansion (1987-1991)
NSFNET was expanded to operate at 1.5 megabits per second (T1) in 1988, a significant technological leap.
Regional networks like NYSERNet (which registered nyser.net as the 4th .net domain in January 1987) connected to the NSFNET backbone.
NSFNET was upgraded to 45 megabits per second (T3) in 1991, enabling broader internet adoption and research capabilities.
Decline of NSFNET (1991-1995)
World Wide Web was launched in 1991, allowing for the increase in private computer use among households.
NSFNET's acceptable use policy was modified to allow more commercial traffic, laying groundwork for the modern commercial internet.
In 1995, the NSFNET backbone was decommissioned as commercial providers took over internet infrastructure, marking the transition to the internet we know today.
Achievements
Nov 5, 1986 3rd Registered .net on the Internet
1986 56 kbit/s Backbone
1988 1.5 Mbit/s (T-1) Backbone
1991 45 Mbit/s (T-3) Backbone
1993 Mosaic Web Browser Development
1995 Commercial Development of the Internet
Projects
Internet Backbone
The National Science Foundation (NSF) created the first high-speed backbone in 1987. It was called NSFNET, and it was a T1 line that connected 170 smaller networks and operated at 1.544 Mbps (million bits per second). IBM, MCI, and Merit worked with NSF to create the backbone and developed a T3 (45 Mbps) backbone the following year. Today many companies operate their own high-capacity backbones, and all of them interconnect at various NAPs around the world.
Mosaic was the first freely available Web browser to allow Web pages to include both graphics and text, developed in 1993 by students and staff working at the NSF-supported National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). In less than 18 months, NCSA Mosaic became the Web "browser of choice" for more than a million users and set off exponential growth in Web servers and users.
The history of NSFNET and NSF's supercomputing centers overlapped with the rise of personal computers and the launch of the World Wide Web in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues at CERN. The NSF centers developed many tools for organizing, locating, and navigating through information, including one of the first widely used Web server applications.
As the current custodian of NSF.net, I maintain this tribute site to honor the legacy of the NSFNET project—an important chapter in internet development history.
This is a historical tribute site only. For questions specifically regarding this website:
.webp)
