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....