The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet) was a major part of early 1990s Internet backbone.
In 1985, the NSF began funding the creation of five new supercomputer centers: the John von Neumann Center at Princeton University, the San Diego Supercomputer Center on the campus of the University of California at San Diego, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Cornell Theory Center at Cornell University and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. The NSFNet connected these five centers and allowed access to their supercomputers over the network at no cost.
The NSFNet went online in 1986, using a TCP/IP-based protocol that was compatible with the military's ARPANET, as a backbone to which regional and academic networks would connect. It experienced exponential growth in its network traffic. The original 56- kbit/s links were upgraded to 1.5 Mbit/s in 1988 and again to 45 Mbit/s in 1991.
From 1987 to 1995 the NSFNET was operated on behalf of the NSF by Merit Network, Inc., a non-profit corporation governed by public Universities.
On April 30, 1995, the NSFNET Backbone Service was successfully transitioned to a new architecture, where traffic is exchanged at interconnection points called Network access points.
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