Other research councils, foundations and industry augment this figure. Many of the HE institutions with a PP group also have a TP group. In the former class are observatories, for which telecommunications infrastructure is often minimal due to their remote location. Generally at present in these instances network infrastructure for remote equipment control extends only as far as the nearest conveniently accessible location. Datasets are comparatively modest, and their transfer is rarely time-critical.
Most sites are multinational and teams are small.
Future applications will include uncompressed video streaming and coordinated terrestrial and space observations. These will demand a network of high bandwidth and low latency. While reliability will be a prerequisite, many other factors would influence adoption of an SJ-type solution in these applications. The UK has commitments to major experiments at CERN and DESY in Europe, at SLAC and FNAL in the USA, and elsewhere. These commitments are expected to continue well into the next Millennium.