Gradually, the walls between these separate networks started coming down, and users of one service could at least send e-mail to users of another service by mutual agreements between the service providers.

Although no specific date or occasion marks the birth of the Internet as we know it today, all the required pieces were in place by the end of the 1990s. Personal computers had become mainstream household equipment, and computer owners could subscribe to an Internet service provider (ISP) such as AOL or a local phone company. In the United States, the NSFNET ceded control of the backbone infrastructure to telecommunications businesses in the mid-1990s. TCP/IP became the standard network communication protocol in all parts of the world, which allowed international communication to flow easily across borders with more reliability than traditional phone service would allow.