In the late sixties, the Advanced Research Projects Administration (ARPA), a division of the U.S. Defense Department, developed the ARPAnet to link together universities and high-tech defense contractors. The TCP/IP technology was developed to provide a standard protocol for ARPAnet communications. In the mid-eighties the NSF created the NSFNET in order to provide connectivity to its supercomputer centers, and to provide other general services. The NSFNET adopted the TCP/IP protocol and provided a high-speed backbone for the developing Internet.