Key Dates on the Internet

1969. 4 mainframe hosts. US Dept of Defense employ Defense Contractors Bolt Beranek and Newman to build and provide ongoing support for its first computer packet-switching network running between the Stanford Research Institute at Menlo Park, 44 kms south of San Francisco, and the research departments at the Universities of Los Angeles (UCLA), Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Utah (UU). The network is called the ARPANET - from the words Advanced Research Projects Agency.

That same year, NASA landed on the moon twice with the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12....

Click here for a moment by moment timeline of first trip, with photos, a major example of mankind's ingenuity when many work together. Click here for a "plain-text" explanation of the CM (Command Module) and its docking with the LM (Lunar Module) just after each launch.
On the CM and LM there were two computers called Apollo Guidance Computers which could multi-task eight jobs with one 1.024 mhz processor, four 16-bit registers, 2kb of main memory, and 32kb of storage memory. They were comparable to early home computers in the late 1970s. Click here for more background to that Klaxon alarm and the five system reboots (error 1202) that occurred in four minutes on that tiny onboard computer during the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Click here for an account of the Apollo 13 trip the following year, a trip when the oxygen tank exploded on the Service module when the astronauts were halfway there, and how they got home, again with photos. Another amazing account of mankind's ingenuity, along with many prayers.

1971. Back to the Internet. 20 mainframe hosts. Bolt Beranek and Newman establish the Email program using the following protocol Username @ Hostname

1972. Louis Pouzin who back in 1963 had developed the "shell" script concept run in a command line interpreter, now designs the datagram for use in Cyclades, a packet switching network based in France.

1973. 40 hosts now connected to the ARPANET with satellite links to London and Norway. All Hostnames are registered at Stanford. Drawing on Louis Pouzin's ideas, work on a new system employing new TCP/IP protocols commences. Jon Postel 1943-1998, a researcher at UCLA, oversees a Request for Comments — RFC — Editor to document these Transmission Control Protocols (TCP ports), and Internet Protocols (IP addresses). His base became the University of Southern California (USC)'s Information Sciences Institute in Los Angeles in 1977. In 1988 he formally established the phrase IANA — the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority — with himself providing the central co-ordination functions of the Internet. Following his death in 1998 IANA became a part of ICANN, see further details below.

1980. 200 hosts. In June the 32-bit IP version 4 protocol is released, allowing for up to 4 billion individual IP host addresses 0.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255 and 16-bit i.e. up to 65535 TCP ports. The US National Science Foundation creates a second core network for institutions that have no access to ARPANET. Three Computer Science depts initially join. Vinton Cerf comes up with a plan for the inter-network connection between this CSNET and the ARPANET.

1982. A modified Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University becomes the first Internet-connected "smart" device on record, able to report on its inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold. Note that the phrase itself, IoT (Internet of Things) would have to wait until 1999 before it was placed on record.

1983. 500 hosts. At the start of this year, US Dept of Defense make TCP/IP protocols mandatory on every host mainframe. The University of California in Berkeley include a modified version of TCP/IP in their commercial release of BSD UNIX. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in conjunction with DEC and IBM computers, use TCP/IP when developing a campus-wide model of distributed computing. They call it a client/server system, meaning that the client computers always initiate the communications by sending requests, and server computers subsequently respond to the requests, providing the client with the desired data or an informative reply. It thus differed from the centralized approach, where one mainframe computer was dominant.

At the same time, numerous defense contractor networks and other university networks establish gateways to the ARPANET / CSNET. The ARPANET continues to be administered by Bolt Beranek and Newman under contract to the Defense Data Network's Network Information Center (DDN-NIC) at Stanford, and the CSNET by the National Science Foundation. From June 1980 referred to as the Internet, — from internetworking — connecting networks regardless of their different individual protocols to these network backbones and thus indirectly to each other. Note, at this time unrelated commercial use of the Internet was strictly forbidden.

1985. 2,000 hosts within 100 networks. The Domain Name System introduced to simplify the sending of email which is now the major application on the Internet. Each computer's Hostname now includes a domain name. Information on a Hostname's associated IP address now stored locally within each computer network's Name Server(s), and just the domain name and the IP address(es) of the Name Server(s) registered in a Top Level Domain registry (TLD) - currently there are 1446. Initial TLDs are .arpa, .mil, .gov, .org, .edu, .net and .com. All domain registrations are overseen by the Defense Data Network at Stanford except .edu registrations which come under Jon Postel at USC. These generic domains are being given out for free, along with free IP address blocks.

1986. 5,000 hosts. With the introduction of Country Code Top Level Domains, this registry system is significantly decentralized. Melbourne University in Australia given responsibility by the DDN-NIC for overseeing registrations in the .au domain. In the US, the National Science Foundation builds a third backbone network, the NSFnet, with high speed links to university networks right around the country.

1987. 25,000 hosts. The first email from China to Germany occurred, via the CSNET.

1988. 50,000 hosts. Merit Network, a non-profit company made up of a consortium of Michigan universities in Ann Arbor Michigan partnering with IBM and MCI, upgrades the NSFnet from 56Kbps to 1.5Mbps. Over 170 campus networks come online to the NSFnet. It takes over backbone duties from the ARPANET.

1989. 100,000 hosts and 4,000 domain names. CERN — the world's largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland — comes online to the NSFnet, also JUNET — Japan's University Network. The first commercial ISP — The World — begins selling file copying access to private dial-up accounts.

1990. 200,000 hosts and 10,000 domain names. The ARPANET, having been fully overtaken and replaced by the NSFnet, is decommissioned and dismantled. The National Science Foundation starts a series of workshops and studies to enable the transition of the NSFnet to private industry. In preparation for this, Merit, partnering again with IBM and MCI, forms Advanced Network & Services (ANSnet) which over the next two years upgrades the NSFnet backbone from 1.5Mbps to 45Mbps.

1991. 500,000 hosts and 15,000 domain names. Network Solutions – a private company based in Washington DC – is appointed by Defense Dept to administer the TLD root zone file to establish those organizations worldwide who are responsible for each country's TLD registry. Also to work with Jon Postel in administering the generic domain registrations, .com, .org, etc.

1992. 1 million hosts and 20,000 domain names. Tim Berners-Lee at CERN demonstrates a newly written WorldWideWeb browser program (later called Nexus) communicating via his HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocols) with a computer database at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) at Stanford University. The simplicity and effectiveness of his protocols for "surfing" the Internet and exchanging information results in a rapid uptake of his technology and the World Wide Web is born.

1993. 2 million hosts. 25,000 domain names and 600 www sites. The National Science Foundation takes over funding responsibility for the Internet from the Dept of Defense. Private companies are becoming involved everywhere.

In November 1993, Mosaic, the first web browser for Windows 3.1 (and Mac) is launched by the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) part of the University of Illinois. Written by Marc Andreessen, it displayed image files inline with text data instead of displaying them in a separate window, a major improvement.
In December 1994, having left the university Marc wrote a new browser program, the Netscape Navigator, which for four years (1995-1999) became the "industry standard" in web browsing. After Netscape closed in 1999, many of Netscape's employees became the Mozilla Organization which launched Mozilla Firefox in 2004.

Back to 1993. This same year, IANA issues the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) with an initial 4 million IP addresses to allow it to become a regional IP address registry, using volunteer labour and donated facilities from a number of countries. Initially based in Tokyo.

1994. 3 million hosts. 50,000 domain names and 10,000 www sites. Beijing, China comes online as the Institute of High-Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing connects to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Numerous government institutions and commercial providers in the U.S. create their own backbones and interconnections on the Internet, preparing for an orderly transition.

1995. 5 million hosts. 100,000 domain names with an equal number of www sites. The NSFnet is dissolved on April 30, 1995. ANSnet is sold to America Online (AOL). The high quality commercial networks (Tier 1 networks) including AT&T, Sprint, ANSnet, UUNet and others have formed a mesh network (rather than a single backbone network), interconnecting with each other on a settlement free basis i.e. no fees charged by the receiving network, known as peering.

On July 1 1995, the Australian Universities Vice-Chancellors’ Committee transferred its commercial customers, associated assets, and the management of interstate and international links, referred to as AARNet, to Telstra. Telstra thereby acquired the whole infrastructure that at that stage constituted ‘the Internet in Australia’, spawning what was subsequently to become Telstra BigPond. Two years later, APNIC shifted from Tokyo to Brisbane. The four major Australian Internet Service Provider (ISPs) were Telstra from 1996, Optus from 1998 - part of Singtel in Singapore, Connect.com.au from 1992 and Ozemail from 1994, making its mark with Malcolm Turnbull as chairman 1994-1999. ...

In 1872 Singapore to Adelaide submarine telegraph built by the British Australian Telegraph Company, founded by John Pender with his company becoming the Eastern Telegraph Company in England
In 1877, following Bell's telephone, Alfred Barratt Biggs (1825 1900), telephoner and astronomer, is credited with making the first long distance telephone call in Australia between Campbell Town and Launceston Tasmania
In 1880 first telephone lines built, and switchboard exchanges (requiring switchboard operators) opening in capital cities and large towns Australia-wide
Click here for a full telegraph/telephone/telex timeline worldwide and in Australia
In 1902, an alternative telegraph route to the UK (and more economical) built from the Pacific Cable Station in Southport via Norfolk Island and Fiji and Fanning Island (part of Kiribati) to Vancouver Island (just off the mainland in Canada), linking to the UK and also to the US
In 1909 the wireless company AWA Ltd formed in Sydney, becomes Australia's largest electronics and broadcasting organization
In 1912 first automatic public telephone exchange opens in Geelong Victoria, Sydney follows in 1915, then South Brisbane in 1925
In 1924 Marconi successfully telephones Australia from England on short-wave radio equipment and within six months of its establishment, the British GPO's system of short-wave stations using Marconi's technology had taken 65 percent of the Eastern Telegraph group's business at a fraction of its cost
In 1929 Cable & Wireless formed as a merged holding company, owned 43.75 percent by Marconi's private shareholders and 56.25 percent by the Eastern Telegraph group
In 1930 Australia now permanently linked to UK by wireless telephone, the result of experiments carried on for many months between the engineers of the British and Australian post offices and AWA
In 1920s Teleprinters introduced by the PMG into the telegraph network with Australian companies using private wire teleprinters from 1933
In 1946 Overseas Telecommunications Commission formed by Commonwealth Government after WW2 to oversee all overseas telecommunications services and inherit its facilities and resources from AWA and Cable & Wireless
In 1954 Telex introduced on a manually switched basis and converted to automatic in 1966 using an Australia wide five digit stored numbering scheme (preceded by a two-letter country code with Australia’s code being ‘AA’)
In 1960 "Crossbar" switching installed in Toowoomba, leading to subscriber trunk dialling (STD) area codes in 1971, followed by international subscriber dialling (ISD) in 1976, then ISD spreading across Australia by the end of the decade
In 1975 Telecom Australia created – the telephone division of the PMG Postmaster General's Department with postal services split off into Australia Post
In 1991 Optus formed as a private company in Australia by Cable & Wireless along with other companies, becoming a second telecommunications company to provide competition to Telecom Australia in wireless and landline services
In 1993 OTC merges with Telecom Australia, forming Telstra
In 1999 Connect.com.au, part owned by NAB and AAPT and Sirius Technologies, was fully purchased by AAPT (Australian Associated Press Telecommunications – part of News Limited, Rupert Murdoch's company)
In 2000 Australian Associated Press sold AAPT to Telecom New Zealand
In 2005 Ozemail was purchased by iiNet in Perth
In 2010 Telecom New Zealand sold AAPT's consumer business to iiNet in Perth
In May 2011 the ISP stats showed Telstra 4 million, Optus 2¼ million, iiNet 650,000, TPG 535,000, while in other stats, from Dec 2009 Vodafone had 318,000, Dodo 240,000, iPrimus 227,000
In 2013 TPG Telecom purchased AAPT from Telecom NZ to become its wholesale and networks division
In 2015 TPG Telecom purchased iiNet
In 2020 TPG merged with Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA)
In 2020, Australia stats showed 8 million households on fixed-line broadband, 5 million users on mobile broadband (with SIM cards in their modems, laptops and tablets), and 27 million users on mobile phones / smartphones

In August 1995, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 1.0 browser was launched as an "add-on" pack to Windows 95, costing $49.99. In November that year Internet Explorer 2.0 was bundled with Windows 95 at no charge. In 1999 it passed Netscape Navigator in popularity, and by 2003 it had 95% usage share of the browser market world wide.

A Norwegian browser, Opera, is launched on Windows. The following year the company commences a project to port Opera to a multitude of platforms including Smartphones and Game machines e.g. Nintendo.

1998. US Dept of Commerce takes over responsibility for the Internet from the NSF. They contract with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) – a non-profit corporation based in Los Angeles – to oversee IANA. This includes regulating the root zone file which establishes those organizations responsible for the TLD registries. Twelve organizations publish this file and it is maintained by one of them, initially Network Solutions, then Verisign – based in Reston Virginia – who purchased Network Solutions in 2000. Verisign was to retain responsibility for the .com and .net TLD registries, and also temporarily the .org (non-profit) registry.

Back to 2000.
2000. 100 million hosts. 40 million domain names. The Southern Cross Cable — a network of trans-Pacific telecommunications cables between Sydney, New Zealand, and California — is built and supported by Telecom New Zealand - 50%, Singtel (new owners of Optus) - 40%, Verizon(previously Bell Atlantic) - 10%. Overseas transmission costs — previously by satellite — drop by a factor of twenty-five, i.e. from 25 cents per megabyte to one cent (and less) per megabyte. Telstra subsequently invests heavily in the Australia-Japan Cable, it becomes operational in 2001.

2003. The Public Interest Registry – a non-profit organization in Reston Virginia – takes over responsibility for the .org domain from Verisign.
This same year a system was released to allow domain names to contain foreign characters. A special syntax called Punycode was developed to employ the prefix "xn--" in the domain label and encode any foreign characters within the label from Unicode into a unique ASCII address — e.g. the chinese character 中.org (pronounced "zhong" meaning "middle") would thus find itself encoded on name servers worldwide as http://xn--fiq.org.

Also this year the Apple Safari browser is launched on the iMac to replace Internet Explorer. It used the Webkit engine that had been earlier used in the Blackberry smartphone browser and the Nokia smartphone browser (for Symbian), both launched previously in 2002.

2007. The Apple iPhone is launched, a 2G smartphone but having much more screen space. With the 3G release the following year, its faster performance (as well) meant it rapidly outsold all the other smartphones, including the Blackberry, Nokia, and various Windows Mobile devices.

2008. In September 2008, Google's first Android smartphone, the HTC Dream is released. The Samsung Galaxy followed in June 2009. Google's Android operating system, able to run on multiple hardware brands, took over the smartphone market worldwide.
There were exceptions, the Apple iPhone retained a significant market share in English speaking countries, and in Japan.

Also in September 2008 the Google Chrome browser is released, running on Windows. By 2012 it had taken over the desktop browser market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

2010. Punycode is extended to enable its foreign character feature inside the top level domains. Click here for the latest list.

2016. In October 2016, ICANN's governance transitioned to that of a private corporation having a multistakeholder model.

2024. There are about 1 billion hosts reached via a global routing table referencing 540,000 networks covering 116,000 Autonomous Systems (ASNs) serviced by the several hundred backbone Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that make up the core of the Internet, overseen by five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).
Click here for the five Regional Zones statistics history showing by Zone and Overall, total ASNs, IPv4 addresses, and IPv6 addresses.
There are now 359 million domain names, with the .com domain registry — administered by Verisign — containing 160 million names, the .cn domain — administered by the Chinese Government's appointee CNNIC — 20 million names, and the .au domain — administered by Australian Government appointee AuDA — 4 million names.

Click here for a real world example of a domain name, its IP address, and different prefixes enabling distant routers to drill down to its network.