Lead sector	Other sectors (Initials)	Start	Project Duration in Months
RESEARCH			21

Summary Objectives and Project Description:

This project aims to deploy trans-European networking facilities which will provide complementary international capacity to allow the national research network investments to be exploited on a global basis and maintain the competitiveness of European research. The technical implementation of a high speed network for research needs to address both the requirements for greater capacity and for support of the emerging multi-media applications. Implementation will be phased, both in terms of geographic and functional roll out.

An important criterion for the selection of the networking technology is that it be sufficiently stable to provide real service to a community of innovative users, yet sufficiently leading edge to ensure applicability throughout the four year planning period, and that it is able to interwork with the services being deployed nationally.

There are major developments in telecommunications technology that will be implemented over the next four years. The most significant is the introduction of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching. ATM promises a number of benefits in terms of performance and manageability, particularly for the emerging multi-media applications. It is, however, not yet a mature technology and will continue to develop.

A two part approach to implementation is therefore proposed consisting of:

- The immediate introduction of a high speed international service based on 34 Mbps access using an ATM Virtual Path based interconnect and the existing Internet Protocol (IP), which is the dominant technology in research networking today, to those countries which can already exploit a service at this speed, with expansion to other countries as they become ready. The ATM based service will at first support only existing IP based services, but will evolve to exploit directly the advanced features that ATM can offer. It is expected that these features will migrate progressively via a pilot service to a production service over a four year period.

- In view of the immaturity of ATM technology, the use of an ATM test bed is also required to validate new developments and features in advance of their introduction in pilot services. Collaboration with the JAMES project has been agreed to use their experimental ATM network for this purpose.

The geographic reach of the new high speed network for research will expand gradually. Even after two years there may be countries that will not be in a position to exploit the new infrastructure. There is therefore a need to maintain connectivity between all European countries. To achieve this, a continuing interconnection between the new high speed network and the existing network services via gateway services is required to provide continuity of service across Europe.

Some of the national research network are planning for access speeds of 155 Mbps at the national level during the course of the project, but, given the PNOs' planned timetables for making 155 Mbps services available internationally, it is not likely that similar services will be deployed internationally.

Major Validation sites :

Institution/ Organisations	City/Town + Postal Code	Region.	Country.
DFN	Koeln	Koeln	DE
INFN	Bologna	Emilia Romagna	IT
SWITCH	Zürich		CH
UKERNA	London	Greater London	GB
GSRT	Athens	Attiki	GR
SURFnet	Utrecht	Utrecht	NL
FCCN	Lisbon	Lisboa e Vale do Tejo	PT
ACOnet	Wien	Wien	AT
RESTENA	Kirchberg	Luxembourg	LU
NORDUnet A/S	Stockholm	Stockholm	SE
RedIRIS	Madrid	Comunidad de Madrid	ES
RENATER	Paris	Ile de France	FR
OSTC	Bruxelles	Bruxelles Cap.	BE
HUNGARNET	Budapest		HU

Other Characteristics of the Project:

Users involved
The main users of the project are the European academic and research community in the participating countries.
Technologies and/or approach used
A Service Network will be deployed at 34 Mbps offering in the first instance an IP service based primarily on ATM Virtual Path (VP) connections. Following testing of further ATM features via a test network facility, new ATM features will progressively be deployed as and when they are proved in the test environment, permitting additional services, such as multi-media applications, to be offered on the Service Network.
Expected benefits for the citizen
The advances made in scientific and industrial research and enhanced educational mechanisms will lead to improvements in the quality of life of the general population through developments in diverse arenas such as medicine, environment, nutritional science, aerospace technology, etc.
Expected benefits for the users of the application
Users of the network will benefit from the increased capacity, flexibility and performance of the network services which will permit the introduction of new applications that will enhance the way research is conducted, and permit improved ways of working which are not possible today.
Expected benefits for the European Industries
The availability of a flexible high speed trans-European computer communications and information exchange facility will enable European research, both academic and industrial, to remain competitive on a global basis, and will satisfy a critical requirement for the future of European industry, influencing the well being of European economies.
Contribution to EU-policies
The project will help create the demand for the European Information Superhighway, and will promote the introduction of high speed commercial services to satisfy that demand by demonstrating the feasibility of implementing high speed services and multi-media applications on a trans-European basis.

Co-ordinator:

Name of Institution/Organisation	City + Postal Code	Region	Country
DANTE	Cambridge CB2 2BH	UK4	UK
Parent company	Controlling Company (Country)
N/A	N/A

Contact person from the Co-ordinating Contractor:

Title, First Name, Name	Dr. Howard E. Davies	Address:	Francis House 112 Hills Road Cambridge CB2 1PQ
Tel:	+44 1223 302 992	Fax:	+44 1223 303 005
E-mail 1:	h.e.davies@dante.org.uk	E-mail 2:

Other Contractors:

Participants Code	Name of Institution/ Organisation	City + Postal Code	Region	Country
C 2	DFN	Berlin D-10707	DE3	DE
C 3	INFN	Rome 00044	IT6	IT
C 4	SWITCH	Zürich CH 8001		CH
C 5	UKERNA	Didcot OX11 0QS	UK52	GB
C 6	GSRT	Athens 115 10	GR3	GR
C 7	SURFnet	Utrecht 3501 DA	NL31	NL
C 8	FCCN	Lisbon 1799 Lisbon Cedex	PT13	PT
C 9	ACOnet	Wien A-1010	AT13	AT
C 10	RESTENA	Kirchberg L-1359	LU	LU
C 11	NORDUnet	Hørsholm 2970	DK003	DK
C 12	CICYT	Madrid 28020	ES3	ES
C 13	RENATER	Paris 75252 Cedex 05	FR1	FR
C14	OSTC	Bruxelles 1000	BE1	BE
C15	HUNGARNET	Budapest H-1111		HU

Last Updated: 18 December 1996 - telematics@terena.nl (hosted by the SCIMITAR project)