This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ixfd64 (talk | contribs) at 11:10, 5 December 2005 (Reverted edits by 62.171.194.40 (talk) to last version by Laug). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 11:10, 5 December 2005 by Ixfd64 (talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 62.171.194.40 (talk) to last version by Laug)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Internet backbone was the central network that linked all the parts of the Internet together. The term is now used as a loose term to describe the "core" of the current Internet.
History
The original Internet backbone was the ARPANET.
In 1989 the NSFNet backbone was established, the US military broke off as a separate MILNET network, and the ARPANET was shut down.
A plan was then developed for first expanding NSFNet further, prior to rendering it obsolete by creating a new network architecture based on decentralized routing.
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 well as inter-university 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 single central network at all.
With the advent of the dot-com bust of 2002, a number of major telecommunications carriers were threatened by bankruptcy, and some failed completely: for example, the EBONE network was decomissioned in its entirety. This was a successful test of the level of fault-tolerance and redundancy of the Internet.
Overview
The Internet backbone consists of many different networks. Usually, the term is used to describe large networks that inter-connect with each others and have individual ISPs as clients. For example, a local ISP may provide service for a single town, and connect to a regional provider which has several local ISPs as client. This regional provider connects to one of the backbone networks, which provides nationwide or worldwide connections.
These backbone providers usually provide connection facilities in many cities for their clients, and they themselves connect with other backbone providers at Internet Exchange Points such as MAE-East in New York or FreeIX in France.
Backbone networks are usually commercial, educational or government owned, such as military networks. Some large companies that provide backbone connectivity include MCI, UUnet, British Telecom, AT&T and Teleglobe.