A free-net was originally a

computer system A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

or network that provided public access to digital resources and community information, including personal communications, through

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

dialup via the public switched telephone network. The concept originated in the health sciences to provide online help for medical patients. With the development of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

free-net systems became the first to offer limited Internet access to the general public to support the non-profit community work. The Cleveland Free-Net (''cleveland.freenet.edu''), founded in 1986, was the pioneering community network of this kind in the world. Any person with a personal computer, or through access from public terminal in libraries, could register for accounts on a free-net, and was assigned an

email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Engineer ...

. Other services often included

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinc ...

chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

IRC Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...

telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet contr ...

, and archives of community information, delivered either with text-based

Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...

software or later the

World-Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web s ...

. The word mark Free-Net was a registered

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN), founded in 1989 by Tom Grundner at Case Western Reserve University. NPTN was a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing and developing, free, public access, digital information and communication services for the general public. It closed operations in 1996, filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. However, prior use of the term created some conflicts. NPTN distributed the software package ''FreePort'', developed at Case Western Reserve, that was used and licensed by many of the free-net sites. The Internet

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

''freenet.org'' was first registered by the Greater Detroit Free-Net (detroit.freenet.org), a non-profit community system in Detroit, MI, and a member of the NPTN. The Greater Detroit Free-Net provided other subdomains to several free-net systems during its operation from 1993 to approximately 2001. Unlike commercial

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

s, free-nets originally provided direct terminal-based dialup, instead of other networked connections, such as Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). The development of Internet access with cheaper and faster connections, and the advent of the

made the original free-net community concept obsolete. A number of free-nets, including the original Cleveland Free-Net, have shut down or changed their focus. Free-nets have always been locally governed, so interpretation of their mission to remove barriers to access and provide a forum for community information, as well as services offered, can vary widely. As text-based Internet became less popular, some of the original free-nets have made available PPP dialup and more recently DSL services, as a revenue generating mechanism, with some now transitioning into the community wireless movement. Several free-net systems continue under new mission statements. Rochester Free-Net (

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...

), for instance, focuses on hosting community service organizations (over 500 to date) as well as seminars about Internet use to the community at no charge. Austin FreeNet (

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

) now provides technology training and access to residents of the city, "fostering skills that enable people to succeed in a digital age."

References

External links

* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050508122305/http://www.vcn.bc.ca/sig/comm-nets/bluebook/ , date=May 8, 2005 , title=The NPTN Blue Book, 1993 – A manual on how to create a free-net and also describes the history of community networking.
Freenets & Community Networks
– International list of freenets
ISPbargains.com
– A comprehensive updated list of free dial-up Internet service providers.
Cleveland Free-Net Atari SIG Archive #1
- The Atari Special Interest Group (SIG) Archive is one of the only collections of preserved content from the Cleveland Free-Net.
Cleveland Free-Net Atari SIG Archive #2
- An alternate version of the Cleveland Free-Net Atari SIG archive.
Cleveland Free-Net tribute website
- A website designed to look like the Cleveland Free-Net that provides history of the system and its users. Bulletin board systems Internet service providers Community networks Web 1.0

See also

References

External links