ABSTRACT
THE INTERNET, DOUBLING IN SIZE EVERY YEAR SINCE 1988, is an excellent example of the need to interconnect. Analysts estimate that over 50 million people worldwide are logging on to the Internet, with growth expected to continue exponentially. IDC estimates that by the year 2000, more than 180 million PCs worldwide will be networked via in-building LANs worldwide, a 360 percent increase in just five years. Today, more and more businesses are being interconnected in a networked community of interconnected WANs, as seamless as a LAN workgroup, and interconnectivity among local and wide area networks is one of the fundamental requirements of most network installations.
