AS TOLD BY ANDY SMITH:No discussion of Philadelphia Internet history can be complete without mentioning PREPnet, the original ISP in Pennsylvania. To us grizzled network engineers, PREPnet _was_ the Internet. If you wanted a blazing fast 56 Kb/s leased line to the ‘net, it came from PREPnet. T1 was for those who were truly privileged, and if you were absolutely blessed, a 10 Mb/s circuit was something out there, to be touched by only a chosen few. My cable modem is faster today.

PREPnet was formed in 1988 by Carnegie Mellon, Drexel, Lehigh, Penn State, Temple, UPenn and Pitt. The Commonwealth of PA and Bell of Pennsylvania (now Verizon) also contributed to the network. At its peak, PREPnet provided Internet connectivity to hundreds of schools, organizations and businesses across Pennsylvania. This was before the advent of the World Wide Web, when telnet, gopher, WAIS and anonymous ftp were the de facto Internet applications.

PREPnet eventually succumbed to the booming commercial Internet, and around the year 2000, was purchased by Verio.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 2:09 pm.