Bridge the Digital Divide
Merit Initiatives
A History of Innovation
Merit Network began as a connection between 3 research universities, but through initiative and invention has become so much more. While embracing its primary purpose of providing connectivity, Merit also continuously pushes the boundaries of exploring new opportunities, content, and ways of doing.
Some of the historically significant contributions of Merit include (i) the development and deployment of the world’s largest public registry of Internet data, Merit RADb, (ii) the leadership role in the GateD Consortium that provided a platform for designing and testing new network routing protocols, and (iii) the pioneering work of distributed dial-in and AAA mechanisms. Other notable past projects include the Internet Performance Measurement and Analysis (IPMA) project that helped lay the foundation for Internet data collection and statistical analysis (in collaboration with the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) and the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR), the Flamingo visualization tools, and the BGPTables Web-based toolset for analysis of routing data.
From 1987 until April 1995, Merit managed and re-engineered the NSFNET Backbone Service project in partnership with the National Science Foundation, ANS, IBM, MCI, and the State of Michigan. The NSFNET led directly to the growth of the commercial Internet.
Merit Initiatives
Merit Initiatives are those projects that begin as an extension of Merit’s day to day work. This can look like a lot of different things from fiber builds and optical upgrades, to broadband technical assistance. Recent examples include, RISE, LIFTUP, MOON-Light, Moonshot, Compass and more.
