UUNET

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UUNET Technologies, Inc.

logo
legal form Incorporated
founding 1987
resolution 2004
Seat Ashburn , Virginia

UUNET was an American internet company founded in 1987. It was the first commercial Internet provider and the largest of nine Tier 1 carriers . In 2001 UUNET was part of the WorldCom group (now Verizon ).

history

The company was founded in 1987 by Rick Adams to provide Internet access for companies, government agencies and universities. From 1994 UUNET also offered web hosting . As the technical operator of Microsoft's Internet service MSN , UUNET also indirectly supplied private customers with Internet access from 1995 onwards.

In December 1996, UUNET became a subsidiary of WorldCom. In 2000, the company moved its headquarters from Fairfax to the new WorldCom headquarters in Ashburn and thus lost its independent structure. The name UUNET was only used as a brand name for the large customer division from 2001 and almost completely disappeared after the dissolution of UUNET Technologies, Inc. at the end of 2004. The WorldCom successor group MCI was bought by Verizon in 2006 . The brand was present in Africa for a long time, but was then taken over by MTN Business.

In Germany, UUNET took over the Internet provider EUnet in Dortmund in 1996 . Today the former UUNET branch in Dortmund is the headquarters of Verizon Germany.

The success of UUNET was closely linked to John Sidgmore, who led the company from 1994 and made it the largest Internet carrier worldwide. Sidgmore was considered one of the most popular executives in the industry. In April 2002 he became Chairman of the Board of Directors of WorldCom. Three months later, the group had to file for 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.

Backbone

From 1990 UUNET set up the worldwide Internet backbone AlterNet , which Verizon Business continues to operate under the domain alter.net . From the mid-1990s to around 2002, the largest proportion of the total Internet data traffic was transported via the AlterNet. According to a study from the year 2000, 37 percent of the traffic in the USA ran via UUNET, followed at a considerable distance by Sprint with a 16 percent market share.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ International Directory of Company Histories . Vol. 38. St. James Press, 2001. [1]
  2. ↑ EUnet becomes Uunet . Heise online from August 3, 1997
  3. ↑ John Sidgmore, 52, Dies; Headed WorldCom . In: The New York Times . December 12, 2003, p. 41
  4. ^ How Will the WorldCom Situation Affect Telephone and Internet Service? . In: The Washington Post . June 27, 2002
  5. ↑ http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f5000/5051.pdf

Coordinates: 39 ° 0 ′ 40.4 "  N , 77 ° 28 ′ 16.3"  W.