Unlike TCP/IP (which assumes continuous, low-latency connections), an INP handles minutes to years of signal travel time, intermittent connectivity, and high bit error rates via store-and-forward mechanisms.

The INP is not science fiction. NASA, ESA, and JAXA have been testing DTN and INP-like architectures for over a decade.

The INP solves these by abandoning the "end-to-end" fallacy. It replaces the handshake with a .