DANTE IN PRINT
#2
DANTE's Plans for High Speed Services
Howard Davies
This paper was presented by Howard Davies, General Manager of DANTE, at the 3rd RARE/CEC Symposium on High Speed Networking for Research in Brussels, Belgium, held on 2 February 1994.
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DANTE IN PRINT, No.2
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DANTE’s Plans for High Speed Services
Howard Davies
1. Background DANTE is a non-profit company which was set up in 1993 by the national research networks from eleven European countries in order to provide them and other similar organisations with international services. DANTE’s principal activity is the management of EuropaNET, a 2 Mbps network which has the European Multi-Protocol Backbone (EMPB) as its principal component but which also provides IP connectivity to the US and the global Internet. EMPB is provided by PTT Telecom (Netherlands) according to the terms of a 'framework' contract with RARE; PTT Telecom has sub-contracted EMPB management and operation to its subsidiary, Unisource Business Networks. There are currently six national networks which have 2 Mbps accesses to EuropaNET; there are further 19 organisations which have access points at lower speeds, mainly at 64 kbps, including international organisations such as CERN (1 Mbps) and ESA. EuropaNET has two transatlantic lines; a T1 (1.5 Mbps) line from Geneva and an E1 (2 Mbps) line from Amsterdam are both connected to the Washington GIX. Both lines are contracted directly to DANTE by the relevant European and US PTOs (ANS, PTT Telecom, Sprint and Telecom PTT Switzerland).DANTE has a staff of eleven and is based in Cambridge, UK. It acts as a service provider to the national networks that are its customers but cannot be considered as a competitor of the PNOs. Its role is to act on behalf of its shareholders and other customers to obtain the best possible service on their behalf, taking advantage of the economies of scale which can be applied. It is also important to note that DANTE's role is to provide operational services and not to engage in development. The introduction of advanced services which are not yet fully available commercially nevertheless falls within its remit.
Howard Davies is General Manager of DANTE. His e-mail address is h.e.davies@dante.org.uk
The possibilities for extending EuropaNET services to 4 or 8 Mbps access capacity are being investigated but this does not count as 'high speed' in the context of this paper which is primarily concerned with services at 34 Mbps and higher. Even so, an important consideration is that services at such speeds cannot replace the present service overnight in all European countries; the new services will therefore need to be integrated with the present EuropaNET in a way which makes the boundaries between them invisible to end users. 2. EuroCAIRN EuroCAIRN (European Cooperation for Academic and Industrial Research Networking) has been established as Eureka Project 1061 with, as one of its principal objectives, the establishment of high speed services for the research community. Preliminary work within the project, which included an outline proposal prepared by DANTE and refined in discussion with representatives of the community, resulted in the approval of a EuroCAIRN Technical Specification which is reproduced as an Annex. It foresees a 34 Mbps service, extensible to 155 Mbps and higher speeds. For preference, it would be based on ATM technology but the use of native IP would be accepted as an interim measure if necessary in the interest of making a 34 Mbps service available earlier than would otherwise be possible. Coverage should include the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) as well as Western Europe and links to the US. 3. DANTE Study Report In December 1993, DANTE was invited by EuroCAIRN to make a proposal for the production of a study report based on its Technical Specification. The purpose of the report is to underpin strategic decisions, to provide a detailed justification for funding proposals to national governments and other funding bodies, and to form the basis of a service specification against which potential suppliers can make offers.
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The study report will define technical options; propose an implementation plan (including a plan for geographic and timetabled roll-out); list the commercial options, including plans for subsequent funding and charging; and propose ways in which the introduction of advanced applications can be monitored to measure the effectiveness of the new technology. DANTE will not attempt to carry out all the necessary technical work in the study by itself but will call on the expertise available within the research networking community, primarily through RARE’s Working Groups and Task Forces. DANTE's proposal was accepted by EuroCAIRN in January 1994 subject to negotiation of a few details. The award of a contract for the study awaits the receipt of funding contributions to EuroCAIRN from participating states. 4. Practical Questions The study report will need to address a number of practical questions. Amongst them are the following: • Where are lines available? In most of Western Europe, adequate line capacity is already in place but there may be some constraints on the location of access paths in peripheral regions. In the short term, line availability will impose more serious constraints in the CEEC; on a longer time scale, these are likely to be removed following the progressive installation of the Trans-Europe Link from Germany to Turkey via countries which include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. • Who will supply? On a pan-European scale, the possible answers are affected by current regulatory regimes for telecommunications services, the impact of liberalisation and the speed with which it takes effect. • Can a single PNO provide a pan-European service or will multiple PNOs need to be involved? This depends on the progress of deregulation as well as on the commercial plans of the PNOs. • What will suppliers deliver? At present, no international high speed services are offered commercially; international line capacity at speeds of 34 Mbps and above is only just starting to become available. PNOs' plans, for example whether they propose to offer 'raw' ATM or
packaged services which depend on the use of ATM as an underlying transmission technology, will need to be understood. • Are the available standards adequate and complete? Practical implementation may uncover inadequacies or deficiencies in the standards which have been specified and more work may be necessary to remedy or to extend them. 5. A DANTE Enquiry Independently of its work in relation to EuroCAIRN, DANTE sent a letter to all major European PTOs in December 1993 inviting responses to a more open-ended specification for a high speed service. Great care has to be taken to prevent overlap or inter ference with the EuroCAIRN process but the intention was to investigate the possibilities for quickly introducing a more limited high speed service, perhaps between only a small group of countries initially, if the EuroCAIRN process was delayed for any reason. The enquiry generated only three responses, but two of them were from consortia so that between them they covered a large proposition of the European telecom-munications supply industry. None of the responses included hard information of the kind that would allow an implementation specification to be developed immediately, but all three groups expressed an interest in engaging in a dialogue with DANTE. 6. Conclusion
There are therefore three parallel activities that DANTE is engaged in:
• evolution of the existing EuropaNET service, • investigation of the rapid introduction of a 34 Mbps, limited in geographic scope if necessary, and • preparation of the formal procurement of panEuropean service. The cost of high speed services will have an order of magnitude of a few tens of MECU per year. Since there is no prospect of obtaining 100% central funding for these services even if EuroCAIRN is a complete success, it is also necessary that national organisations urgently engage in the preparation of funding proposals within their own countries.
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ANNEX Trans-European Research Backbone Technical Recommendations 1.The trans-European networking infrastructure should be upgraded to support access at 34 Mbit/s as an immediate action, with the target of providing an operational service in 1994. 2. By preference, the upgrade would utilise IP provided over ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technology; if this proves not to be feasible in the time-scale, then native IP would be used as an intermediate step. 3. The implementation should cooperate with but not rely on the PNO 34 Mbit/s ATM pilot. 4. The upgrade should meet two objectives: - Aggregate traffic demand from existing applications, - Real time demands from advanced applications. The real time requirements of some advanced applications can only be met with ATM technology. 5. Collaborations with European PTOs/PNOs should be sought in order to realise the availability of 34 Mbit/s services, and an attempt made to change the relationship between PNOs and the research community from the existing user/provider relationship into a cooperative relationship. The planning should preferably be based on an integrated solution with commercially available services. 6. Full European coverage, including central and eastern European countries, should be the target and potential constraints should be analysed in detail. 7. The next capacity upgrade to 155 Mbit/s should be planned in parallel with the 34 Mbit/s planning. 8. Collaboration with similar activities in other regions should be ensured. EuroCAIRN Committee Brussels, December 3, 1993
Biography H E DAVIES D.Phil C.Eng 1964 - 1977 CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), Geneva Scientific Programmer, Group Leader, Project Manager
1977 - 1993
University of Exeter Director of the Computer Unit
1989 - 1991
RARE (Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne), Amsterdam, (Part-time) Director of the Interim COSINE Project Management Unit
1992 - 1994
Vice-President, RARE, Amsterdam
1993 - now
DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe Ltd), Cambridge General Manager Keywords High Speed Services, 34 Mbps Abstract DANTE has been formed as a non-profit company by a group of national research networks in order to provide them with international services. In addition to the 2 Mbps multi-protocol service which it already operates, DANTE is making plans to introduce 34 Mbps and higher speed services as soon as this is feasible. Much of the planning activity is being carried out in the context of the Eureka EuroCAIRN Project. The scope of the activity and the issues that need to be addressed are described.
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