From an engineering perspective this was an important precursor to the Internet interconnection architecture that followed such as the Metropolitan Area Ethernet (MAE) and the NSF sponsored Network Access Points (NAPs) that were established for the transition of NSFNET traffic to competing service providers that included Sprint, ANS, , and others.
From an engineering perspective, this was a crucial precursor to the Internet interconnection architecture that followed, including the Metropolitan Area Ethernet (MAE) and the NSF-funded Network Access Points (NAPs), which were established to facilitate the transfer of NSFNET traffic to competing service providers like Sprint, ANS, etc.