Special services and facilities, such as the Connection Machine, the Massachusetts Microelectronics Center, and library catalogs, were made available over NEARnet.
The tech was developed and provided by wireless pioneer and Cambridge neighbor, Microwave Bypass.
The microwave was a core technology, which met the highest internet speed of 10 Mbps and helped to fund the network by eliminating recurring transmission charges.
It consisted of an analog 23GHz, licensed, point-to-point microwave link, modified for a 10MHz baseband carrier and mated to an 802.3 Ethernet transceiver/microwave interface ("EtherWave Transceiver").
On July 1, 1993, NEARnet operations were assumed by BBN Systems and Technologies under contract to MIT.