What Is BITNET?

Date First Published: 12th May 2022

Topic: Computer Networking

Subtopic: Network Standards

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 6/10

Learn more about what BITNET is in this article.

Short for Because It’s Time Network, BITNET was a cooperative US computer WAN that was introduced in 1981 at the City University Of New York by Ira Fuchs and Greydon Freeman. It first linked the two universities together and was originally called ‘Because It’s There Network’, but was renamed to ‘Because It’s Time Network’.

BITNET was the predecessor of the World Wide Web and worked in a different way from how the Internet Protocol works. In a similar way to Usenet, emails and files were transferred from one server to another as whole data until they reached their final destination.

Versions and History

BITNET II was introduced in 1986 to improve requirements for bandwidth. Eventually, it was merged with CSNET to form CREN in 1988. In 1991, BITNET became much more popular. At that times, it connected approximately 3000 nodes and 500 organisations together, all of which were educational organisations. In addition, this network spanned the whole North American continent and connected to other areas of the world, such as South America, which connected approximately 200 nodes together. It is known as:

• NetNorth in Canada.
• EARN in Europe.
• TIFR in India.
• GulfNet in some Persian Gulf territories.

In 1996, support for BITNET came to an end. The nodes could keep their phone lines up for as long as they needed to, but due to the disconnection of nodes, the network broke into parts that were inaccessible from each other. In 2007, BITNET was officially discontinued. However, BITNET II, which sends information through the internet by BITNET protocols still has a small number of users.