isr.co.ro : glossary ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) The original network for which most of the technologies used in the Internet were developed. ARPANET was funded by the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) starting in the late 1960s to connect military-research laboratories. Among other goals, ARPANET was designed to be resistant to outages caused by atomic attack. ARPANET was later opened up to a wider range of research labs and universities, then split into the military's MILNET and various civilian networks.