[ih] How long did it take?

[vinton cerf]

In late 1982, I started work on the engineering of MCI Mail. We issued an
RFP and eventually BBN won with its C30 (etc.) X.25 network capability. The
system made use of DEC VAXEN (email servers), HP (print servers), IBM
(accounting). They all had X.25 interfaces. The Internet was turned on
operationally as of Jan 1, 1983 but not yet commercially available. The MCI
Mail system started operation in September 1983 and continued in operation
until 2003.

Paul Baran was also rebuffed by what was then the Defense Communication
Agency (now DISA or is it WISA?)

In July 1989, CERFNET was launched by General Atomics by its then executive
director, Susan Estrada. It was an internet service for the academic and
research community. it was later acquired by AT&T.

>From Gemini:

Acquisition Timeline

   - January 1997: Teleport Communications Group acquired CERFnet from
   General Atomics for $68 million.
   - 1998: CERFnet became part of AT&T when TCG was merged into AT&T. [1
   <https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/short-take-teleport-buys-cerfnet/>,
   2 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERFnet>, 3
   <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-i-15-bit-beyond-herb-siegel>]


UUNET and PSINET were contemporary 1989/1990 commercial Internet services
and the three, including CERFNET, were interconnected by the Commercial
Internet eXchange (CIX) mirroring the Federal Internet eXchanges that
linked ARPANET, NSFNET, NASA Science Internet and ESNET (DOE).

On Thu, Sep 17, 2026 at 4:36 AM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via
Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Services running on TRANSPAC made lots of money.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpac_(data_network)
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
>
> On 17/09/2026 06:39, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history wrote:
> > DATAPAC "opened for use in 1976 as the world's first public data
> > network designed specifically for X.25." [Wikipedia]
> >
> > Canada won, thanks to Peter Cashin and his experience at NPL under
> > Donald Davies. DATAPAC was definitely first in the world, before PSS
> > (Packet Switch Stream) was operational in the UK.
> >
> > Regards/Ngā mihi
> >    Brian
> >
> > On 17-Sep-26 14:59, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> >>
> >>> If the X.25 service came out in 83
> >>
> >>
> >> It came out earlier than that.  In the NSF meeting that produced CSNet,
> >> circa 1981, there was general awareness that X.25 was already
> >> commercially deployed.  Most folk thought the proffered services were
> >> like the Arpanet's host-host packet service and were quite surprised to
> >> hear the, really, what was being sold for customers was X.28/X.29 -- ie,
> >> telnet.
> >>
> >> The initial email-based dial-up CSNet service was the fallback, for
> >> initial operation.
> >>
> >> I don't know when 'raw' X.25 became a viable commercial service. Perhaps
> >> that what the above 1983 date meant?
> >>
> >> d/
> >>
>
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