The internet got better and faster by moving data closer to users

Until 1995 MANY messages sent between internet users in Frankfurt could expect to go on quite a ride. If the sender and receiver used different internet service providers (ISPs), the message would make a return trip across the Atlantic Ocean, pulsing along thousands of kilometres of underwater fibre-optic cables before ending up just a few kilometres from where it started. This was, in a way, a triumph of abstraction. The users had no idea about the intercontinental detour (except perhaps for how long it took). But for the ISPs involved it was a royal pain. So three of them got together and, in the back room of a post office, installed a switch that linked their networks together. It was called the Deutsche Commercial Internet Exchange, or DE-CIX.