Today the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of a phenomenon that has been playing an increasingly vital role in our lives — the Internet.
It was exactly 40 years ago that computers at the University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford connected for the first time. At the time, the new-born was christened Arpanet, after its American father, the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA).
At 10.30 pm on October 29, 1969, Charley Kline and Bill Duvall — the first two hosts on what would become the world wide web — sent the first computer-to-computer message. The intention was to write ‘login’ but only ‘lo’ made it across before the remote device crashed on the ‘g’ - a situation any internet user can relate to, even in these technologically advanced times. By 1973 the young venture went global, with connections extending across the Atlantic.
In 1988, India first joined the internet, making this the 21st year that our country has known the world wide web. Anil Garg, then of National Centre for Software Training, set up ERNET, the Education and Research Network, connecting eight academic institutes in India via e-mail. The first links were in Mumbai between NCST and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
At the time, the only phone available at the IIT computer science department was located in the office of the chairman. To transfer a message, Garg would call him, apologise for the interruption, and ask him to switch the phone to modem. If the phone was used for a voice session, e-mail had to wait. In its very first year, ERNET was such a success that, according to Garg, they had to change from a dial-up to a leased circuit by 1990.
The first internet service provider in Bangalore was STPI which started offering their services in early 1990s.
This was restricted to corporates until VSNL began providing dial-up access for the general public. The company launched India’s first full Internet service for public access on August 14 1995, just in time for the Independence Day. Initially established in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, the network reached Pune and Bangalore later the same year. Today Bangalore has one of the highest number of broadband internet connections in India, the top providers including Airtel, Tata, Reliance, and Hathway.
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