NSFNET

NSFNET was a network for research computing deployed in the mid-1980s that in time also became the first backbone infrastructure for the commercial public Internet. Created as a result of a 1985 National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative, NSFNET established a high-speed connection among the five NSF supercomputer centers and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and provided external access for scientists, researchers, and engineers who were not located near the computing centers.

By the early 1990s, as commercial networks began to build their own backbone infrastructures and their own routing mechanisms, the public service furnished by NSFNET's backbone was turned over to the newer backbones and NSFNET was shut down. The scientific and research network continued as vBNS and, more recently, Internet2.