[ih] Question - reference source for formal decommissioning of ARPANET in 1990?

[Guy Almes]

I don't have a source, but plenty of memories about the era.

Beginning in 1987, while at Rice University in Houston, I was organizing 
one of the regional networks related to the NSFnet project.  One of the 
reasons why NSF asked us at Rice to lead the effort within Texas was 
that the more obvious statewide leadership at the University of Texas 
were not interested.  This was because they had a nice connection to the 
ARPAnet.  During this period, when email and a little FTP were the main 
applications, a medium-lightly loaded 56kb/s ARPAnet was pretty good.

But by autumn 1988, when the NSFnet regional networks were growing 
rapidly, campus LANs were popping up, and the (fractional) T1-based 
NSFnet backbone was a great success, the university community quickly 
turned to the NSFnet as its primary Internet infrastructure.  And, while 
the federal agency networks, especially at the Dept of Energy and at 
NASA, were also very successful, the folks at ARPA were in no mood to 
invest further in the ARPAnet as bread-and-butter infrastructure.  Not 
only would that have required the ARPAnet to be upgraded to T1 circuits 
etc., but it would then have to be managed primarily as infrastructure 
rather than as a relatively nimble combination of infrastructure and 
research vehicle.  And, given the growth in usage of the Internet, based 
in part on the much greater capacity of the T1-based NSFnet, a 
56kb/s-based national network connecting high-end computer science 
research departments and labs was no longer of real interest.  After 
all, while a lightly loaded 56kb/s network can support email and FTP 
quite well, a congested 56kb/s network is not really useful.

So, once it was clear that the NSFnet would succeed, ARPA decided to 
shut down the ARPAnet.  Given that the community could still vividly 
remember the ARPAnet being, until at least 1987, the premiere Internet 
service, this was quite shocking.  The key figure at ARPA was Major Mark 
Pullen.  I recall one wag referring to Pullen pullin' the plug on the 
ARPAnet.  When he announced the shutdown and its timing, as I say, even 
many of us active in the NSFnet project were taken aback and fretted 
over the difficulties of transitioning to an Internet without the 
ARPAnet as a key component.  But, by the time the shutdown approached, 
my memory was of it being a non-event.

Others on the list surely experienced this from different perspectives.

	-- Guy

On 12/2/20 9:08 AM, Alex McKenzie via Internet-history wrote:
> Unfortunately the reference Da in April 1998ve provides doesn't say that the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990.  What it does say is "DARPA took the first steps toward dismantling ARPANET in April 1988, with the announced intention of completing the job within 3 years."
> Alex
> 
>      On Tuesday, December 1, 2020, 9:15:24 PM EST, dave walden via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>   
>   I believe Alex McKenizie and I also say it in the following, if this is
> a good enough reference for the citation you want:
> 
> “The ARPANET, the Defense Data Network, and the Internet”, Encyclopedia
> of Telecommunications, Marcel Dekker, Inc., Volume 1, pp. 341-376. I can
> perhaps find a specific page number.
> 
> 
> On 12/1/2020 8:56 PM, Dan York via Internet-history wrote:
>> Question for this group… does anyone know of a source (preferably online) that says something definitive about the decommissioning of the ARPANET in 1990?
>>
>> As I mentioned some time back, I’ve been doing some editing of Wikipedia pages as a personal project during these pandemic days, and on both of these pages:
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet*History__;Iw!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOu03zJOaw$
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOt4LAm_-g$
>>
>> There is the statement:
>>
>>      "The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990.”
>>
>> This was flagged by another editor as “citation needed”. In searching around, I found many articles that made a reference to the ARPANET being decommissioned in 1990 (either in February or July depending upon the article), but nothing I would call “definitive” (or in Wikipedia lingo a “reliable source<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOvzEYOgcQ$ >”). Most articles seem to be repeating info that probably came from other articles!  But nothing “official” that states that ARPANET ended in 1990.
>>
>> I searched in our own (ISOC) history docs. I found an ICANNWiki page<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://icannwiki.org/ARPANET__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOuBRagKOA$ > that similarly states at the end that the ARPANET was shut down in 1990 but again provides no source. I searched RFCs. I searched for early NSFNet documents that might mention it. I’ve found many articles (including from people on this list) about the birth and early years of the ARPANET, but haven’t yet found anything about its ending.
>>
>> Any suggestions or pointers?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dan
>>
>> P.S. For the purpose of removing the “citation needed” flag, I added a reference on one of those links to a 2019 media article that mentioned the ARPANET ending in 1990, but that’s not a good reference and I’d like to replace it with something more definitive.
>>
>> --
>> Dan York, Director, Web Strategy / Project Leader, Open Standards Everywhere<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.internetsociety.org/ose/__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOvt5CcopA$ > / Internet Society
>> york at isoc.org<mailto:york at isoc.org> / +1-603-439-0024 / @danyork<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://twitter.com/danyork__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOsHVIpmOQ$ >
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.internetsociety.org/__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOtm9Hynxw$ >
>>
>> [cid:image001.png at 01D5D03B.DF736FF0]
>> internetsociety.org<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.internetsociety.org/__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOtm9Hynxw$ > | @internetsociety<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://twitter.com/internetsociety__;!!KwNVnqRv!S98KGr51KdB-BSN8syGIAN2TORFnuff2t4iel23qhuVgtSyes4KyaOvfKUL1HA$ >
>>