BPN 1742: 30 Years of open internet in The Netherlands

Last week on November 17, it was 30 years, since The Netherlands as the first European country linked up to the open internet through the US National Science Foundation. An update of a blog posting of 17 November 2013 with the original permission e-mail and a video (subtitled in English) by CWI, the internet pioneer in The Netherlands

Dutch internet pioneers Jaap Akkerhuis, Daniel Karrenberg, Teus Hagen en Piet Beertema (right) at the pensioning event of  Piet Beertema on 16 September 2004. Source: CWI.

In the Netherlands, the Mathematical Centre (MC) in Amsterdam in 1982 was in contact with Arpanet and played a role  an important role in the UUCP network of European universities. MC became the network gateway between the US and Europe. Domain names were released by Arpanet, but in 1986 a shortage of the domain names threatened for the 25,000 computers connected to the UUCP network of universities and the Arpanet. Piet Beertema, employee at MC (but from 1983 onwards CWI, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) came up with the solution of a country suffix in the domain name. John Postel from the Stanford Research Institute, responsible for the domain names, approved the country suffix dot country code as a proper instrument.

And on April 25, 1986 the suffix .nl was allocated to the Netherlands. The Netherlands was the first country with its own country code. On May 1, 1986 the first Dutch domain name cwi.nl was registered. The next domains were: nluug.nl (association of professional Open Systems and Open Standards users in the Netherlands); nikhef.nl (The National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics); rug.nl (university of Groningen) and sara.nl  (Collaborating academic computing centers). Piet Beertema was the registrar and recorded the domain names. In the first two years he was not very busy, as he only registered 60 domains in his notebook. In 1989 there was only one registered domain name. Apart from academic computer centers companies could also register a domain name, but they had to show their Chamber of Commerce registration paper.

The slow growth was due to the transformation that internet underwent. Arpanet decided to continue as the military internet branch and the National Science Foundation became responsible in 1988 for academic and commercial NSFnet. On November 17, 1988, at 14:30 pm Piet Beertema linked The Netherlands as one of the first countries outside the US to the academic network NSFnet. The Netherlands brought the first, non-military, transatlantic connection to the Web.

This connection did give a boost to internet use in the academic world. But the registration of domain names only really took off from 1993, when the Dutch ISP XS4ALL on May 1 launched its Internet services to consumers on May 1, ending the first day with 500 subscriptions. And the Internet began in earnest, when the Digital City opened its gates and businesses did not know how fast they had to register a domain name in order to have an internet profile. Over the following years registration of domain names increased. In order to keep pace the Foundation for Internet Domain Registration in the Netherlands (SIDN) was founded. On January 31, 1996 the tasks of the CWI were transferred to SIDN.

End of March 2016, more than 5.8 million domain names were registered with SIDN (see  SIDN statistics).

BPN 1673: 25 years open Internet via Amsterdam

On November 17, 2013 it will be exactly 25 years since the former Mathematisch Centrum (Mathematical Centre), now Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam was linked up to the NSFnet, the network of the U.S. National Science Foundation. This connection gave the Netherlands and Europe access to the open Internet. It was the beginning of today's Internet for scientific institutes and universities and later for businesses and consumers.

Internet pioneers Jaap Akkerhuis, Daniel Karrenberg, Teus Hagen, and Piet Beertema (CWI) at Piet Beertema's farewell party at CWI on the occassion of his retirement on 16 September 2004. Source: CWI.

Until that date, the traffic of the precursor of internet was conducted via Internet ARPANET, the U.S. military network. This network was developed from 1969 and was shaped in 1975 when Vincent Cerf and Bob Khan for the first time used the term Internet in a lecture in which they described the TCP/IP protocol. The network was not only used for military purposes, but also research institutes and universities, which were allied to scientific research for the government. Through this network the Mathematisch Centrum made its first contact in 1982. Thanks to this contact the staff of the Mathematical Centre in contact with the Internet developments. When in 1985 for the first time the URL with the suffix.com was attributed to the American company Symbolics Inc., the staff, including the system manager Piet Beertema, looked out to get the suffix .nl in place. On April 25, 1986 The Netherlands was the first country to have a country suffix assigned. Piet Beertema became the first registrar of the .nl suffix. Not that it was a lot of work, as in the first two years only 87 URLs were issued.

The e-mail about the first open transatlantic Internet connection between CWI and the United States . Source: Piet Beertema.

In 1986, the academic network of the military network informed and in the network of the National Science Foundation, NSFnet, accommodated. In 1988 this network was independent, primarily aiming at academic institutions. And in the same year on Sunday, November 17^th, it was the day that the Mathematisch Centrum was connected to NSFnet. At 14:30h The Netherlands was the first country in Europe connected to the open Internet and registrar Piet Beertema received an e-mail stating that the Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam was the first institution outside the US with official access to NSFnet.

The connection also meant that Europe had access to NSFnet through EUnet. With the connection not only The Netherlands got access, but also Europe got access to an academic computer network, which later evolved into the world and open Internet. This network was not checked by soldiers and military industry, but was open, which had consequences for future users, such as free use.

The link-up of the Mathematical Centre with NSFnet opened the way for internet traffic from The Netherlands and Europe. Even today a lot of internet traffic from Europe to NSFnet passes through the Amsterdam internet exchange (AMS-IE).

The CWI will commemorate this festive anniversary on Friday, November 22, 2013 at the Amsterdam Science Park. Here, a plaque will be unveiled at the place, where the Dutch and European Internet started 25 years ago.