The performance improvements were a natural result of improvements in link technology coupled with the use of a switch-based design to increase aggregate throughput above that of a single link and with careful engineering at all levels to minimize latency. The manageability improvements were the result of systematically eliminating human intervention from the fault detection and reconfiguration operations of the network, resulting in systems that quickly reconfigured themselves in the event of failures and that continued to provide service with the remaining operational components and links. Thanks to inexpensive networking with Ethernet and PC LANs, networked systems of PCs and workstations have exploded in popularity, to the point where by the mid 1980's the LAN technology developed in the late 1970's was not keeping up with the demands for local area communication.
Broadcast means that the network throughput is limited to the media bandwidth.
In a time when the number of computers attached to a LAN and the dependence of each computer on remote access was increasing sharply, tying communications volume to changes in media technology meant that the network couldn't keep up with the demand over time. In their simplest configurations, the current LAN networks also exhibited a single point of failure. In the case of bus LANs, increased speed implies decreased segment length. In the case of ring LANs, latency is proportional to host count, since all messages travel around the ring to visit all hosts. The industry was starting to developed various fixes for these limitations, such as repeaters, active hubs, bridges, and routers.