It is important to ensure a high quality of service and consistency that MANs be managed to a common standard. The ACN will also review the current charging policy to ensure it meets the need to raise additional revenue and encourages the effective management of wide area networking within institutions. The ACN will develop funding priorities and review its policy and approach to network charging. Important protocol developments are taking place in America as part of the Internet 2 project. Internet 2 is developing a number of leading edge applications relevant to HE in research and teaching.
Similar projects are already underway in the UK under various funding council initiatives.
It is important that the UK can deploy this new protocol as soon as possible. The JISC will also keep a watching brief on developments in digital TV as this offers the possibility of providing near ubiquitous Internet access to the home and workplace. The JISC will also explore managerial and financial models to facilitate the exploitation of digital TV when appropriate. The vision of the DNER is to provide a rich collection of on-line information that can be easily searched and will provide links to an increasing range of scholarly resources. More work is needed to incorporate moving images and high fidelity audio.