Commercial Traffic Over the Internet

The Internet's U.S. backbone, called NSFnet is funded by the National Science Foundation, NSF, which is a government agency. The NSF has an "acceptable use" policy that prohibits the transmission of commercial data over its backbone. However, many network service providers offer services for commercial data that bypass the NSFnet.

Uunet Technologies Inc., which operates Alternet, Performance Systems International Inc., which operates Psinet, General Atomics Inc., which operates Cerfnet, and other commercial network providers have set up an association called the Commercial Information Exchange (CIX). CIX provides an alternative commercial backbone. At present members of CIX carry each other's traffic on their network at no charge.

Advanced Network and Services Inc. (ANS), a nonprofit organization which manages NSFnet, has set up a subsidiary to use the spare capacity of NSFnet to carry commercial traffic.

Commercialization of Internet has started and worldwide commercial traffic on Internet is expected to grow.