There’s one little twist in this story that isn’t mentioned, and I’ve never quite understood. When the NSFnet started to upgrade from the T1 backbone to the T3 backbone in 1990, they formed a company called ANS (Advanced Network and Services) to run it.
When the T3 backbone got shut down in 1995, (most of) ANS was sold to… AOL.
There’s one little twist in this story that isn’t mentioned, and I’ve never quite understood. When the NSFnet started to upgrade from the T1 backbone to the T3 backbone in 1990, they formed a company called ANS (Advanced Network and Services) to run it.
When the T3 backbone got shut down in 1995, (most of) ANS was sold to… AOL.
Weird.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Network_and_Services