WRITTEN QUESTION E-0351/01

by Elly Plooij-van Gorsel (ELDR) to the Commission

(13 February 2001)

Subject: GÉANT research network

In November 2000, as part of the Fifth framework programme, the Commission launched the research networks action and made 80 million available for support for an increase in trans-European network capacity to 2,5 Gbit/s and, possibly, 10 Gbit/s over four years.

1. Does the Commission agree that the speed of the entire GÉANT network is largely determined by the country with the slowest network speed and the narrowest bandwidth?

2. What speed is currently attained (in February 2001) in each of the countries connected to GÉANT?

3. Can the Commission indicate the countries which have already attained a speed of 2,5 Gbps or which will attain that speed in 2001?

4. What were the findings of the evaluation which the Commission had carried out in respect of the TEN-155 project as regards:

(a) the speed of the network per Member State, and

(b) the total speed of the entire network when a speed of 155 Mbps was actually attained?

Does the Commission feel that the use of ATM technology hampers the attainment of a high-quality superfast network assisted by state-of-the-art technologies?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(7 June 2001)

1. The GEANT network, its topology, capacity and services are determined by the requirements of each and every interconnected network, the market conditions, the funds available from the National research and educational networks (NRENs) and the performance characteristics of equipment available from suppliers.

The capacity of the most performant part of the network is not constrained by the low requirements of any particular NRENs connected to the backbone.

2. The access capacities to the GEANT backbone, from the individual countries(1), are 10 megabit per second (Mbps) from Restena/Luxembourg, 34 Mbps from Carnet/Croatia, Heanet/Ireland, IUCC/Israel and RCCN/Portugal, 45 Mbps from Aconet/Austria, ARNES/Slovenia and Belnet/Belgium, 68 Mbps from Cesnet/Czech Republic, 155 Mbps from SWITCH/Switzerland(2), GARR/Italy, GRNET/Greece(3), Hungarnet/Hungary, JANET/United Kingdom, PSNC/Poland, Rediris/Spain and Renater/France, 310 Mbps from DFN/Germany and Nordunet(4) and 622 Mbps from Surfnet/Netherlands(5).

3. It is expected that in November 2001, 2,5 gigabit per second (Gbps) connectivity will be installed between 11 Points of Presence (PoP) of GEANT (one PoP per country).

4. The project Quantum has been regularly reviewed according to the procedures defined for the Fifth framework programme (FP5) projects. The outcome of the reviews has been positive.

At the end of the project, the access capacities to the trans-european network (TEN-155 backbone, from the individual countries were, 10Mbps from Heanet/Ireland and Restena/Luxembourg, 34Mbps from Carnet/Croatia, IUCC/Israel and RCCN/Portugal, 45 Mbps from Aconet/Austria, ARNES/Slovenia and Belnet/Belgium and Cesnet/Czech Republic, 124 Mbps from Rediris/Spain, 155 Mbps from SWITCH/Switzerland, GARR/Italy, GRNET/Greece, Hungarnet/Hungary, JANET/United Kingdom, Nordunet, PSNC/Poland and Renater/France, 310Mbps from DFN/Germany and 622 Mbps from Surfnet/Netherlands.

The TEN-155 backbone was constituted by 27 connections interlinking the Points of Presence in the different countries. Thirteen of these connections were operating at 155Mbps and three of them at 622Mbps.

The use of Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology has been of significant help in implementing quality services (e.g., support of guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), virtual private networks (VPNs) and effective resource management). However, ATM will in practice not be available in networks operating at Gbit/s speeds. GEANT should be amongst the first national or international networks to make use of technology supporting VPNs at the IP level as soon as it becomes available.

(1) Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovak Republic are not connected yet to the GEANT Network.

(2) Including connectivity to CERN.

(3) Including connectivity to Cyprus (4 Mbps).

(4) Nordunet is a regional network integrating Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden.

(5) Surfnet is not part of the GN1 Consortium but the networks are connected.