Internet backbone

The Internet backbone was the central network that linked all the parts of the Internet together.

Stage 1: The original Internet backbone was the ARPANET.

Stage 2: In 1989 the NSFNet backbone was established, the US military broke off as a separate MILNET network, and the ARPANET was shut down.

Stage 3: (creation of the NAPs, EGP[?])

Stage 4: With the decommissioning of the NSFNet Internet backbone network on April 30 1995, the Internet now consists entirely of the various commercial ISPs and private networks, as connected at their peering points.

The term "Internet backbone" is now sometimes loosely used to refer to the inter-provider links and peering points. However, with the universal use of the BGP routing protocol, the Internet functions with no central network at all.

With the advent of the dot-com bust[?] of 2002, a number of major telecommunications carriers are threatened by bankruptcy. So far, the Ebone[?] network is in the process of being decomissioned, and other major carriers may fail over the coming months. If this happens, this will be a test of the level of fault-tolerance and redundancy of the Internet.

See also:

• History of the Internet
• routing

External links:

• Goodbye to the NSFNET (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/stats/NSF/merit.html)