EU invests 93m Euro to upgrade European Research Network

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[Excerpts from European Commission's DG INFSO Research Infrastructure Unit's
July/August 2004 newsletter - BSA]


http://www.cordis.lu/ist/rn/ri-cnd/news_aug_04.htm

Euro 93 million to upgrade European Research and Education Internet

A contract to upgrade Europe’s world-leading GÉANT communications network
for research and education has been signed by the European Commission in
Brussels. Upgrades will include high-performance services for the most
demanding network users, giving researchers their own “wavelengths” across
the continent; end-to-end connectivity, which will give scientists direct
access to the advanced communication capabilities of GÉANT and Europe’s
national research networks; and a mobility and roaming service that will
enable scientists to stay connected to GÉANT wherever they are doing their
research. GÉANT and its partners, the National Research and Education
Networks (NRENs), together provide the research communications backbone
infrastructure for 34 countries in Europe. The European Commission’s
contribution to this project, €93 million, is estimated at less than 50% of
total expenditure. The remainder will be co-financed by the participating
countries. 

Providing scientists across the EU with a state-of-the-art communications
architecture, delivering performance far superior to the services offered by
today’s commercial Internet, enables the EU to increase its ability to
innovate and compete – an ability that is in turn essential to its
productivity and growth,noted Enterprise and Information Society
Commissioner Olli Rehn. 
 
Industry take-up of GÉANT’s current architecture and design is encouraging,
and is paying dividends. From the first quarter of 2005, the upgraded GÉANT
network infrastructure will further expand the supply of advanced
communication technology services, and should prompt a further wave of
information and communication technology innovation, leading to a more
efficient and cost effective provision of internet services to citizens,
he added. 

Commission funding for GÉANT under this contract, which runs until September
2008, comes from the EU Research and Development Framework Programme. GÉANT
enables all researchers from Iceland to the Caucasus to pool their ideas,
data and computing power to achieve results that they could never manage
alone. For example, GÉANT supports advanced collaboration tools used by the
aerospace industry and the European Space Agency (ESA). It has played an
important part in stimulating take-up of Internet Protocol IPv6, which is
bringing advanced Internet services into homes, businesses and even
vehicles, and has even enabled astronomers to combine data from several
radio telescopes, enabling them to view the early universe in exquisite
detail. 

The upgraded GÉANT network, co-ordinated by DANTE, will use a hybrid
architecture that seamlessly combines the best technology from the worlds of
telephony (switching) and the Internet (routing). 

This will provide faster, more powerful services for the most demanding
users, creating dedicated routes along predictable traffic paths. End-to-end
connectivity will enable scientists to have their “own” virtual private
networks. A new mobility and roaming service will allow scientists to stay
connected to GÉANT, wherever they are working. For further information:
http://www.geant.net. 
  


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