UUNET
UUNET was an American Internet company that was founded in 1987. It was the first commercial Internet provider and the largest of the nine Tier 1 carriers. 2001 UUNET went in the WorldCom group on (now Verizon).
History
The company was founded in 1987 by Rick Adams to provide Internet access for companies, government agencies and universities. From 1994 offered UUNET also web hosting. As a technical operator of Microsoft's MSN Internet service supplied UUNET in 1995 indirectly and private customers with Internet access.
In December 1996, UUNET was a subsidiary of WorldCom. 2000, the company moved its headquarters from Fairfax in the new WorldCom 's headquarters in Ashburn and lost its autonomous structure. The name UUNET was used from 2001 only as a brand name for the corporate customer arm and almost disappeared after the dissolution of the UUNET Technologies, Inc. at year-end 2004. WorldCom MCI Group successor was bought in 2006 by Verizon. In Africa, the UUNET brand is present today.
In Germany UUNET took over in 1996, the Internet provider EUnet in Dortmund. Today, the former UUNET office in Dortmund is the headquarters of Verizon Germany.
The success of UUNET was closely associated with John Sidgmore, who headed the company since 1994 and made it the largest Internet carriers around the world. Sidgmore was considered one of the most popular leaders in the industry. In April 2002, he became CEO of WorldCom. Three months later, the company had to declare bankruptcy because, as it turned out, his predecessor Bernard Ebbers had manipulated the balance sheets. John Sidgmore died in late 2003 at the age of 52 years.
Backbone
From 1990, built on UUNET global Internet backbone AlterNet, which continues to be operated by Verizon under the domain alter.net. From the mid-1990s to about 2002, the largest share of all Internet traffic was transported over the AlterNet. According to a study from the year 2000 ran 37 percent of the traffic in the U.S. UUNET, by far, followed by Sprint with 16 percent market share.