The Internet Index

Number 3
Inspired by "Harper's Index"*
Compiled by Win Treese (treese@OpenMarket.com)
17 September 1994 (Revised 19 September 1994)

Here is the Internet Index annotated with sources and the directory of all editions.

Number of daily newspapers with Internet mail addresses: 54
Number of TV and radio stations with Internet mail addresses: 62

Percentage of PCs using TCP/IP in 1993: 3.9
Sales of PC TCP/IP products in 1993: $272 million

Number of daily comic strips that regularly include an email address: 2
(The strips are "Dilbert" by Scott Adams -- scottadams@aol.com -- and "Frank and Ernest" by Bob Thaves -- FandEBobT@aol.com)

Average number of megabytes of USENET news, per day: 172
Estimated number of USENET sites: 180,000
Estimated number of readers of news.announce.newusers: 800,000
Estimated worldwide disks space used by USENET news: 61 terabytes

Number of lawsuits over use of trademarks in domain names: 2

Number of Internet retailers purchased by Home Shopping Network: 1

Average time between new network connections: 30 minutes

Number of countries connected by IP: 75
Number of countries connected by electronic mail: 152

Number of subscribers to BITNET mailing lists: 1 million
Number of subscribers to BITNET list for David Letterman's Top Ten Lists: 18,000

Number of PGP keys in the MIT public key server: 6398

Number of CommerceNet Sponsors: 53

Number of Commercial Internet Exchange members: 85

Number of commercial domains registered between July 15 and August 15: 1401

Number of advisories issued by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT): 98

Number of Internet access providers (U.S.): over 100
Number of cable television companies providing Internet access: 1

Percentage of US public libraries offering Internet searches by staff: 21

Number of state consumer affairs agencies with Internet connections: 1

Number of domains registered to Fidelity Investments and related companies: 15

Number of Internet Request for Comments documents (RFCs): 1697
Percentage written by Jon Postel (some with collaborators): 10
Number issued so far in 1994: 135

Number of telephone calls handled by AT&T on a normal business day: 175 million
Number of telephone calls handled by AT&T on 17 January 1994 (the day of the Southern California earthquake): 204.7 million


"Harper's Index" is a registered trademark of Harper's Magazine Foundation. Copyright 1994 by Win Treese. Send updates or interesting statistics to treese@OpenMarket.com. A copy of the Index annotated with sources can be found at http://www.openmarket.com/info/internet-index/current-sources.html.

To subscribe to future issues of the Internet Index, send a message saying "subscribe internet-index" in the body to internet-index-request@OpenMarket.com.