NETCOM On-line Communication Services was an Internet Service Provider established in 1988 by Bob Reiger, an information systems engineer for Lockheed. Netcom started off in San Jose as a service to allow local students to access university networks off-campus. The original accounts were all dialup shell accounts on Sun SPARC servers. Netcom soon served 95% of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Lockheed SR-71, remarkably advanced for its time and unsurpassed in many areas of performance The Lockheed U-2 first flew in 1955 providing much needed intelligence on Soviet bloc countries Lockheed Corporation was an aerospace company founded in 1912 which merged with Martin Marietta in 1995 to form...

When first launched, Reiger was the only system administrator for the company. Indeed, users would call him early in the morning to fix internet access issues until he hired night staff. In 1992, the company was incorporated. A system administrator is a person responsible for running, or running some aspect of, a computer system. ... 1992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

As the World Wide Web became more popular, and users were looking for an easy way to surf the Web, Netcom released a Windows 3.1 based program called NetCruiser (originally it was to be called Internet Xpress, but there were legal issues with calling it by that name, so it was changed in the latter part of development). The NetCruiser service became very popular and made Netcom one of the leading Internet Service Providers by the mid 1990s.

Netcom became headline news when the Church of Scientology sued Netcom for copyright infringement. On February 13, 1995, armed police officers and attorneys from the Church of Scientology raided the home of Dennis Erlich, a former minister of the Church of Scientology. Mr. Erlich was charged with copyright infringement of the Church's sacred writings, and Netcom On-line was sued by the Church because a BBS owned by Tom Klemesrud hosted the alleged infringing postings. This case caused an uproar in the Internet industry since Netcom didn't actually post the content, did not know that the material was under copyright, and could not control what customers could do with their service. Netcom and Klemesrud eventually settled out of court (see Scientology vs. the Internet for more information). A Scientology Center in Los Angeles, California. ... The online war between Scientology and its critics has become known as Scientology versus the Internet. ...

In December 1995, Netcom Canada, a subsidiary of Netcom On-line was launched in Toronto, Ontario with Ron Close as its CEO. Netcom Canada boasted a Canada Wide Network, and allowed U.S. Netcom customers to access their Internet accounts via their network using either NetCruiser or any PPP dialer. It was the first Internet Service Provider in Canada to become EBITDA positive. }|135px|City of Toronto, Ontario Official Flag]]|Coat Image=[[Image:{{{Coat Image}}}|135px|City of Toronto, Ontario Coat of Arms]]}} {{Canadian City/Disable Field={{{Disable Motto Link}}}}} Motto: Diversity Our Strength {{Canadian City/Location Image is:{{{Location Image Type}}}|[[Image:{{{Location Image}}}|thumbnail|250px|City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada Location. ... Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Other Canadian provinces and territories Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant Governor James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) Area 1,076,395 km² (4th)  - Land 917,741 km²  - Water 158,654 km² (14. ... In accounting, EBITDA stands for Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. Which as the name suggests is earnings excluding expenses from depreciation, amortization, interest, and taxes (earnings + ITDA), in the way the usually appear on the income statement, up to down. ...

In February 1996, computer security researcher Tsutomu Shimomura monitored Netcom's network to track down an unknown attacker who electronically broke into his computer. While monitoring their network, he discovered the person who compromised his computer was Kevin Mitnick. 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Categories: People stubs | Hackers ... Kevin Mitnick Kevin Mitnick (born August 6, 1963) is one of the most famous criminal hackers to be jailed and convicted. ...

In May 1996, Netcom Internet Limited, a subsidiary in the United Kingdom was launched. In 1997, Internetcom do Brasil SA was founded as a joint project between Netcom On-line and Itanet, a Brazilian telephone company. 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1996 the company called itself the world's largest ISP, with some 500,000 subscribers.

In 1997, Rieger turned the presidency of Netcom over to David Garrison, formally of Skytel. Under his direction, the company ventured into the business services market with web hosting and hi-speed business connectivity products. On October 13 of the same year, ICG Communications announced in a press release that it had "entered into a definitive agreement and plan of merger with NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc.". In February of 1999, ICG sold off the Netcom's U.S. subscribers and other assets to Mindspring for $245 million in cash and stock. Netcom Canada was bought by was eventually merged with Metronet (the first Canadian CLEC), and AT&T Canada, with the combined entity acquiring the AT&T Canada name (later, in the summer of 2003, this entity dropped the AT&T name and rebranded itself as Allstream). Meanwhile, at the time of the Mindspring acquisition, Netcom Internet Limited in the United Kingdom became GTS Netcom, and in March 2003, it became part of the Viatel Group along with another business ISP, Cybernet. On January 12th, Netcom Internet Ltd was rebranded to Viatel. David Garrison (born June 30, 1952) is an American actor, who played the character Steve Rhoades on the television show Married with Children from 1987 to 1990. ... MindSpring was a major Internet service provider which merged with EarthLink on February 4, 2000, with the company retaining the EarthLink name. ... Metronet is one of the three private operators of the London Underground under a public-private partnership arrangement. ... A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a carrier) that competes with other, already established carriers (generally the incumbent). ... Allstream is now owned by MTS of Manitoba. ...

External links

• ICG Buys Netcom, Press Release (http://www.thedigest.com/85/85-8.html)
• Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communications Services, Inc. (http://law.richmond.edu/jolt/v3i1/burhugh.html)
• Netcom entry on the Dictionary of Computers, Multimedia, and the Internet (http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/computers/data/m0050827.html)
• The Computists' Communique (http://www.computists.com/tcc/tcc5n02.html)
• Takedown (http://www.takedown.com/timeline/netcom/index.html)