A Brief History of the Internet

In 1969, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a project in computing resource sharing termed the ARPANET. ARPANET consisted of multiply connected, high-bandwidth (56 Kbps) links between government, academic and industrial laboratories.

During the 1970s DARPA was the chief funding body for packet switching networks using diverse technologies, such as mobile radio transmitters and satellite links. By the mid 1970s research concentrated on a framework for the ARPANET. By 1979 the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was running exclusively over ARPANET.

Ref: ISC Internet Domain Survey (and now for amusement purposes only). As early as 2007, a white-paper from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that US-based Internet growth in use, is slowly slowing. More recently they report that growth in value is slowly slowing. Other interesting readings (from our Resources page): A Short History of the Internet, IP: 10 choices that were critical to the Net's success, Counting on the Internet (summary of findings).