<P> As the project progressed, protocols for internetworking were developed by which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks . Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet protocol suite (TCP / IP) was introduced as the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET . In the early 1980s the NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing centers at several universities, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET project, which also created network access to the supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations . The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990 . </P> <P> Historically, voice and data communications were based on methods of circuit switching, as exemplified in the traditional telephone network, wherein each telephone call is allocated a dedicated, end to end, electronic connection between the two communicating stations . Such stations might be telephones or computers . The temporarily dedicated line typically comprises many intermediary lines which are assembled into a chain that reaches from the originating station to the destination station . With packet switching, a network could share a single communication link for communication between multiple pairs of receivers and transmitters . </P> <P> The earliest ideas for a computer network intended to allow general communications among computer users were formulated by computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), in April 1963, in memoranda discussing the concept of the "Intergalactic Computer Network". Those ideas encompassed many of the features of the contemporary Internet . In October 1963, Licklider was appointed head of the Behavioral Sciences and Command and Control programs at the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). He convinced Ivan Sutherland and Bob Taylor that this network concept was very important and merited development, although Licklider left ARPA before any contracts were assigned for development . </P> <P> Sutherland and Taylor continued their interest in creating the network, in part, to allow ARPA - sponsored researchers at various corporate and academic locales to utilize computers provided by ARPA, and, in part, to quickly distribute new software and other computer science results . Taylor had three computer terminals in his office, each connected to separate computers, which ARPA was funding: one for the System Development Corporation (SDC) Q - 32 in Santa Monica, one for Project Genie at the University of California, Berkeley, and another for Multics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Taylor recalls the circumstance: "For each of these three terminals, I had three different sets of user commands . So, if I was talking online with someone at S.D.C., and I wanted to talk to someone I knew at Berkeley, or M.I.T., about this, I had to get up from the S.D.C. terminal, go over and log into the other terminal and get in touch with them . I said, "Oh Man!", it's obvious what to do: If you have these three terminals, there ought to be one terminal that goes anywhere you want to go . That idea is the ARPANET ". </P>

The first network that initiated the internet was