The national biomedical communications network as a developing structure.

The National Biomedical Communications Network has evolved both from a set of conceptual recommendations over the last twelve years and an accumulation of needs manifesting themselves in the requests of members of the medical community. With a short history of three years this network and its developing structure have exhibited most of the stresses of technology interfacing with customer groups, and of a structure attempting to build itself upon many existing fragmentary unconnected segments of a potentially viable resourcesharing capability. In addition to addressing these topics, the paper treats a design appropriate to any network devoted to information transfer in a special interest user community. It discusses fundamentals of network design, highlighting that network structure most appropriate to a national information network. Examples are given of cost analyses of information services and certain conjectures are offered concerning the roles of national networks.