On 3/14/2014 5:42 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
NSFNet was an (important) extension to the already-existing Internet.
Better still is that among its various contributions to Internet growth
was that it provided a second, recognized backbone, forcing the
development of BGP, which permits multiple independent backbones.
While BGP certainly came out of NSFTNET, if memory serves, there were 5
"backbone" networks interconnected at FIX-East when it went it in, circa
1988. And that it was the addition of the 2nd FIX, FIX-West, that
really demonstrated the need for something better than EGP. (I was
working on 1 of the 5, the Wideband SATNET, at the time and had to deal
with technical issues for it's IP/ST Gateways.)
Lou
BTW this discussion triggered my reading of RFC898 -- A really
interesting bit of Internet history there....