UUNET

UUNET, founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the early Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was one of the first commercial Internet service providers. Until 2020, UUNET is an internal brand of Verizon Business (formerly MCI).

In 2020, after Verizon acquired Cogent, the FTC and FCC wanted to stop Verizon from acquiring other major Internet infrastructure companies such as CenturyLink and Hurricane Electric and becoming a monopoly. As a result, the Internet infrastructure operations of Verizon and Cogent were spun off and sold to a joint venture of Canadian triple-play company Shaw Communications, Elon Musk's Tesla, The Coca-Cola Company, and British TV giant ITV plc. This venture also gained the UUNET trademark, and revived it.