The History of Los Nettos

The Los Nettos Consortium was created in 1988 by group of Southern California researchers to provide cost-effective connections to the national NSFNET backbone for local campuses and research institutes. Led by Danny Cohen and Jon Postel of USC’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI), the group included Charles Seitz of Caltech, Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA, and Richard Kaplan of USC. The group had the benefit of support from Mark Pullen of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Science and Technology Office (DARPA/ISTO).

The founding members of Los Nettos made commitments to create the regional network in June 1988. The necessary hardware began to arrive in October 1988; testing started in November, and the first four nodes of the network (ISI, UCLA, USC, Caltech) were up by December 1988. After CERFNet was built in the San Diego area in 1989, Los Nettos and CERFNet provided backup links to the NSFNET backbone for each other.

Today, Los Nettos continues to provide connectivity to Los Angeles area to a variety of research, education, government, and enterprise networks. It is administered and operated by the Information Technology Services (ITS) division of the University of Southern California on behalf of the Los Nettos Consortium.

See the 1988 entry in the Hobbes Internet Timeline

The T1 years

While most regional networks were built as 56 kilobit per second networks, Los Nettos started with T1 (1.5 megabit per second) links between all of its sites. When CERFNet was completed in 1989, it provided Los Nettos with a backup connection to the NSF Backbone and vice versa.

  • 1988 – NSFNET upgraded to T1 backbone.

  • 1988, June – First commitments made for funding for Los Nettos.

  • 1988, October – First Cisco gear arrives at USC’s Information Sciences Institute for testing and configuration.

  • 1988, December – First four nodes are up and passing packets (Caltech, UCLA, ISI, USC), as the all-T1 regional network is realized.

  • 1989 – Los Nettos adds nodes for RAND Corporation, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), TRW, Trusted Information Systems (TIS), IBM, UNISYS, and Naval Ocean Systems Command (NOSC), completing the orginial network.

  • 1989 – Los Nettos allows associate connections via member connections.

  • 1994 – Los Nettos upgrades its connection to the Internet backbone to DS3 (45Mbps).

1995-2000 – The DS3 years

From 1988 to 1994, T1 connections were adequate to run the network, including connections to the NSFNet. In 1994, the connection to NSFNET was upgraded to DS3. Demand for internet connectivity jumped and Los Nettos upgraded the majority of its member connections to 45 Mbps connections (DS3).

  • 1995 – American Computer Group (ACG) joins Los Nettos as non-voting member.

  • 1995 – Los Nettos backbone is ugraded to 45Mbps.(T3)

  • 1995 – The Associate Program is integrated into Los Nettos and expanded to include hub sites at the Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Caltech, American Computer Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and TRW-Space Systems.

  • 1996 – Los Nettos co-founds the MAE-LA / LAAP internet exchange in downtown Los Angeles and Marina del Rey with Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS).

  • 1998 – Los Nettos Co-founder Jon Postel dies on October 16; anniversary plans are delayed.

  • 1999 – Los Nettos starts upgrades to gigabit backbone.

  • 2000 – Los Nettos celebrates belated 10th-anniversary party in October.

10Gs

USC pioneered efforts to obtain metropolitan fiber to create a new, more flexible, regional network and led Los Nettos’ efforts to create a fiber footprint for Los Nettos member connections. Local internet exchanges sprang up after the dot com bust and the creation of Pacific Wave allowed research and educational institutions to extend their peers to other regional networks across the ocean.

  • 2002 – Los Nettos begins upgrades to 10-gigabit backbone.

  • 2003 – The Claremont Colleges becomes a member of Los Nettos.

  • 2004 – Los Nettos joins Pacific Wave.

  • 2006 – Loyola Marymount University becomes a member of Los Nettos.

  • 2006 – Los Nettos joins Any2 exchange at One Wilshire.

  • 2007 – LAAP exchange transitioned to CIIX exchange.

  • 2007 – Los Nettos upgrades its peering and transit hardware.

  • 2008 – Los Nettos celebrates its 20th year of operation.

  • 2011 – Occidental College becomes a member of Los Nettos.

  • 2012 – The long awaited optical upgrade gets underway.

  • 2013 – Los Nettos celebrates its 25th year of operation.

And now 100G, 400G, 800G

  • 2024 - Los Nettos begins deployment of 400G native optical backbone refresh

  • 2025 - The last 10G transit link is disconnected and migrated to 100G