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                  * *      A bi-monthly electronic news bulletin
                 *   *     reporting on the activities of DANTE,
                *          the company that provides international
               *           network services for the European 
THE WORKS OF D A N T E     research community.

No.5, August 1994          Editor: Josefien Bersee
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2 MBPS EUROPANET CONNECTION FOR NORDUNET

Since 1 July 1994 NORDUnet, the network of the Nordic countries, has 
had a 2 Mbps connection to EuropaNET. Belgium, Germany, Italy, The 
Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom already had 2 Mbps 
connections.

NEW EBONE GATEWAY ARRANGEMENT 

DANTE has organised a new interconnect arrangement between Ebone and 
EuropaNET, which has been in place since 1 July 1994. The arrangement 
enables France to communicate with the rest of Europe and vice versa; 
the interconnection has a capacity of 512 kbps. CERN (Geneva), as one 
of the locations where EuropaNET and Ebone are both present, is used 
as the actual point of interconnection but traffic flows in and out 
of EMPB through DANTE's PoP in Amsterdam.

CONNECTIVITY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE  

The contract between the European Commission and PTT Telecom to 
provide EMPB (EuropaNET) connections to the Czech Republic, Hungary, 
and Romania under the EC PHARE Programme was extended from 31 
December 1993 to 30 June 1994. Since 1 July PTT Telecom has been 
continuing the service which is being funded from the remaining PHARE 
budget. However, this funding runs out very shortly.

DANTE has been lobbying both PTT Telecom and the EC to the effect 
that termination of the services (at least without a replacement 
being put in place) would be very bad. PTT Telecom has now received a 
letter from the EC which gives them enough reassurance that payment 
will eventually be made from the PHARE 1994 Programme to keep the 
present services going.

Both the technical and the funding aspects of the longer term 
continuation of these services will be taken up again once the 
management contract for the PHARE 1994 Programme of support for 
research networking has been awarded by the EC.

US CONNECTIVITY ISSUES
 
DANTE will locate the US end of its new 8 Mbps link from Amsterdam to 
the US at the Network Access Point (NAP) in New York which is set 
up as a result of the new arrangements which have been put in place 
by NSF. Another consequence of NSF's changes is that trans-(US-
)continental broadband network is not available for general use. As a 
consequence, DANTE and other non-US organisations will have to make 
new arrangements with US service providers for distribution of their 
traffic with the US and for transit between Europe and Asia/Pacific 
(see also 'Some impressions from the 30th IETF'). 

The actual form of the NAP connection still has to be decided 
on: the choice will be either to obtain a direct connection or via a 
US service provider.

CONNECTION TO KOREA IN PLACE

A 64 kbps line between Europe and Korea has become operational on 23 
August 1994. The line provides a direct link between KREONet (Korea 
Research Environment Open Network), the Korean national R&D network 
and EuropaNET. DANTE was awarded the contract to organise the 
connection under the EC EKORN project.

KREONet, one of five government networks in Korea, was launched in 
1988 and connects all the major university, government and 
commercial research institutes. It provides the Korean research 
community with the 'usual' services such as e-mail, file transfer, 
remote login etc. DANTE's partner in setting up the connection has 
been SERI (Systems Engineering Research Institute), the organisation 
that operates, manages and develops KREONet.

EUROCAIRN ACTVITY TAKES OFF

Work on the EuroCAIRN Study Report has started. A contract for this 
Project, to specify requirements and options for the setting up of a 
Superhighway for the European research community, was awarded to 
DANTE in May 1994. The Project team consists of DANTE employees 
complemented with a group of external specialists: Robert Cooper 
(UKERNA/SuperJANET), Bernhard Stockman (KTH, Stockholm), Maria 
Pallares and Chris Broomfield. Istvan Tetenyi, from HUNGARNET 
(Hungary) will be joining from October 1994.

DANTE is organising a meeting with representatives of the national 
networks in November 1994 to present the findings of the preliminary 
report. The final version of the report will be delivered in March 
1995.

SOME IMPRESSIONS FROM THE 30TH IETF, TORONTO - MICHAEL BEHRINGER

As the title of this article suggests, this is not meant to be a   
precise report on the IETF, but rather an informal gathering of a few 
personal impressions. 

The most interesting decision that was to be made at this summer IETF 
1994 was concerning the next generation of the Internet Protocol. Due 
to the current growth rate of routing tables, and the problems of 
running out of IP address space, the current version of the Internet 
Protocol has to be either updated or completely re-designed. Three 
proposals have been discussed as IP next generation, TUBA, CATNIP and 
SIPP (I won't explain the details here). Although it was not clearly 
stated during the Plenary Session, it was obvious that the choice for 
IPng went to SIPP. The "Simple Internet Protocol Plus" is supposed to 
tackle a whole range of problems experienced with the current version 
4 of the IP, for example security aspects. 

Another important issue that the Internet has to face during the 
coming months is the change in the US infrastructure. The NSFnet 
backbone as it is today will disappear and be replaced by a 
completely new structure, based on Network Access Points (NAPs). 
Four of those neutral interconnection points will be provided and are 
currently being set up. The basic idea behind it is that network 
providers connect to one or more NAPs and peer there with other 
providers. Providers who need transit capacity to remote spots of the 
Internet will have to buy it from other providers. Unfortunately this 
model only looks at US requirements, without taking European or other 
non-US countries' concerns or problems into consideration. As there 
are a lot of unknowns in this new model, it was a heavily discussed 
item during the IETF, in sessions as well as off-line. 

Apart from those two major topics there were a lot of issues 
discussed in the numerous working groups. To list all the work that 
was done there would require a lot of paper or storage space. But the 
fact that quite a few people present at the IETF did not get out of 
the hotel more than once or twice during this week probably tells 
enough about the loads of work being done there.

For more information, like proceedings, information on the Internet 
Society, working groups, etc. see:
http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/home.html 

WWW SERVER IN PLACE

DANTE has set up its part of the World Wide Web. The server contains 
information on all DANTE services and activities. A picture of 
EuropaNET and statistics on EuropaNET backbone traffic will be 
updated on a monthly basis. DANTE is also maintaining a picture 
which gives an overview of Intercontinental connectivity of the 
European research community - through EuropaNET as well as other 
networks and arrangements.
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