Connectivity for the pan-European Gigabit research network about to get awarded
Press Release
Connectivity for the pan-European Gigabit research network about to get awarded
Cambridge, UK, 19 June 2001 - The National Research and Education Networks (NREN) Consortium announced today during an event organised 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 was about to be signed.
GÉANT is the pan-European Gigabit research network which will become fully operational in November 2001. It represents a 40 million Euro per year activity, co-funded by the European Commission as part of its 5th Framework Programme.
The connectivity within GÉANT will be provided by a total of nine suppliers, the largest three contributing an aggregate international circuit capacity of 118 Gigabit/sse out of the total of 120 Gigabit/s on the network. It is anticipated that GÉANT will implement nine trunk circuits each operating at 10 Gigabit/s and a further eleven trunk circuits operating at 2.5 Gigabit/s from the start of service. At least ten national research networks will access this backbone at 2.5 Gigabit/s. The resilience of the network will be assured by connecting the GÉANT points of presence in most cities by two or more international circuits to different countries.
The combination of these two elements, speed and resilience, will give GÉANT an efficient and robust structure and make it the most advanced network of its kind in the world today.
Interconnecting over 3,000 research and education organisations in more than 30 countries, GÉANT will maintain the tradition of excellence and innovation which has been the trademark of the previous generations of pan-European research networks. At the leading edge of technology, the members of the Consortium will use GÉANT as a testbed to introduce such technologies as Quality of Service and IPv6 into operational services for the benefit the entire European research and education community.
Responsibility for implementing GÉANT lies with DANTE, the Cambridge-based organisation which is the co-ordinating partner of the project.
About the NREN Consortium:
The NREN Consortium consists of 27 European national and regional research and education networks who have committed to taking part in GÉANT 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.
About DANTE:
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 GÉANT is available on http://www.dante.net.
About GRNET:
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).
For more information about GÉANT, please contact:
Marine Chartois
External Relations Manager
press@dante.org.uk
DANTE
Tel: +44 1223 302 992
