NETWORKS

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND -- The National Research and Education Networks (NREN) Consortium announced in June at an event organized in Athens by the Greek Research and Technology Network (GRNET) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Greek Ministry of Development that a series of contracts for the connectivity to build GEANT will be signed. GEANT is the pan-European Gigabit research network, which will become operational in November 2001. It represents a 40 million Euro per year activity and is co-funded by the European Commission as part of its Fifth Framework Programme. The connectivity within GEANT will be provided by nine suppliers, the largest three contributing 118 gigabits out of the 120 total gigabits on the network. It is anticipated that GEANT will implement nine trunk circuits operating at 10 gigabits and a further 11 trunk circuits operating at 2.5 gigabits, with at least 10 research networks accessing this backbone at 2.5 gigabits. The resilience of the network will be assured by a number of dual links connecting the GEANT points of presence in most cities. This combination of speed and resilience will give GEANT an efficient and robust structure and make it the most advanced network of its kind in the world. Interconnecting more than 3,000 research and education organizations in more than 30 countries, GEANT will keep up with the tradition of excellence and innovation, which has been the trademark of the previous generations of pan-European research networks. The members of the consortium will use GEANT as a testbed to develop such technologies as Quality of Service and IPv6 into operational services to benefit the entire European research and education community. Responsibility for implementing GEANT lies with DANTE, the Cambridge-based organization that is the coordinating partner of the project. The NREN Consortium regroups 27 European national and regional research and education networks who have committed to taking part in GEANT for the duration of the project, with DANTE as a co-ordinating partner. These NRENs provide connectivity to a total of 31 countries across Europe. The launch of DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe Ltd.) in 1993 marked an important milestone in the history of European research networking. Set up to provide advanced international data network services for the European research community, DANTE's services complement those provided by the national research networks. DANTE is a not-for-profit company, which has a number of European national research and education networks as its shareholders. Information on DANTE and GEANT is available on http://www.dante.net/. GRNET, a next generation Internet infrastructure, aims at fulfilling the Greek Research & Academic Community requirements and serves as a vehicle towards advanced networking development. It participates actively in the GEANT / TEN - 155 consortium of all National Research & Education Networks (NRENs) of Europe, that provides advanced interconnections among them and sponsors related networking experiments (pilots).