Copyright © 2011 by University of Nebraska–Lincoln, all rights reserved. Redistribution or republication in any medium, except as allowed under the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
The information age has early roots on the edge of the Great Plains with the work of John V. Atanasoff, a professor at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University), who led the development of the first all-electronic computer in 1940. The growth of the information age in the Great Plains is especially evident in the spread of the global computer network known as the Internet.
The National Science Foundation's NSFNET,
established in 1986, was instrumental in the
rise of the Internet from its beginnings in the
Department of Defense to its place as a worldwide
communications system. The NSFNET
was envisioned as a national computer network
to connect researchers at universities to
the newly established supercomputer centers
and to each other. The network design consisted
of regional networks connected to a national
backbone. The NSFNET was remarkably
successful and became the basis of the modern
Internet. In the summer of 1986 the NSF
funded the creation of MIDnet, a regional network
in the heart of the Great Plains. The
original NSF grant recipients were eleven universities
(predominantly land-grant institutions)
in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,
Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. In
September 1987 MIDnet became the first regional
network to be fully operational.
The first midnet network consisted of leased
lines operating at 56 kilobits per second (Kb/s)
connecting routers using the TCP/IP protocol
at each campus to the NSFNET backbone
through the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA) at the University
of Illinois. Because of the land-grant character
of the MIDnet consortium, all but one of the
member institutions were located in relatively
small cities lacking 56 Kb/s service. "Special
assembly" by AT&T, the contractor for the
communications lines, caused considerable
expense and some delay, but final installation
and testing of the lines were completed in September
1987, and midnet became operational.
The NSFNET and MIDnet grew quickly. By
1989 the NSFNET backbone had been upgraded
to 1.544 Kb/s (T1) with the MIDnet hub at the
University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Although
MIDnet began as a university research network
with a grant spearheaded by Doug Gale at the
University of Nebraska–Lincoln, it was soon
evident that success would take the Internet
far beyond its initial purpose.
midnet shifted from being a universitybased
organization to nonprofit status in 1992.
Two years later, MIDnet was acquired by Global
Internet, a Palo Alto start-up company whose
Network Services Division later was acquired
by Verio in 1997. Similarly, the NSFNET was
commercialized with the formation of the Internic
in 1993 and its transfer to the private
sector in 1995. Many businesses in the Great
Plains contributed to the commercial development
of the Internet. For example, MFS Communications
of Omaha, Nebraska, pioneered
fiber-optic networks in metropolitan areas
around the world and established early commercial
network access points (NAPS); and
Ameritrade, also based in Omaha, began popularizing
stock trading on the Internet in 1995.
The Great Plains Network (GPN) is the
next-generation, regional, "Internet 2" network
for research and instruction. GPN was
founded in 1997, with many of the original
midnet institutions. The increase in speed
from the 56 Kb/s rate of the original midnet to
the 155 megabits/second (Mb/s) OC3 and 622
Mb/s OC12 rates of the GPN illustrates the great
and rapid progress of the Internet in the Great
Plains.
The information age will influence greatly the future of the Great Plains. The Internet allows instant, broad communication of work, commerce, education, medical care, and entertainment, thus bridging in new ways the distances that both isolate and insulate residents of the Great Plains. This brings opportunities for benefits and risks of loss. The opportunities are in decentralization, allowing Great Plains residents to engage from distant locales in many more new and diverse activities. Given this new access, for example, the feasibility of economic enterprises locating in formerly stagnant small Plains towns is significantly enhanced. The risks are that communication technologies also create dynamics for efficiency that foster centralization of smaller enterprises from remote areas and for a general homogenization of regional distinctions.