TEN-34: The Information Superhighway for European Researchers
TEN-34 (Trans-European Network Interconnect at 34 Mbps) is a major breakthrough in European research networking. The project, which is jointly funded by the "Telematics for Research" sector of the Telematics Applications programme and the ESPRIT (Information Technology) programme, will deploy the first Europe-wide high-speed computer network for the research community. Increasingly, national university networks in Europe are setting up a high-speed national computer network infrastructure. This enables researchers to use sophisticated multimedia and real-time applications (e.g. video conferencing) on the network. A high-speed interconnect facility between these national superhighways was previously missing, which seriously hampered international collaboration between European researchers. TEN-34 represents a breakthrough for cooperation between the European National Research Networks, bringing European researchers closer to the capacities now being enjoyed by their North American counterparts. It also achieves a new level of collaboration between them and the major European telecom operators, who are all involved in the project. The TEN-34 project is coordinated by DANTE, a not-for-profit company owned and set up by a number of European National Research networks to organize and manage advanced network services for the research community at a European level. Initial testing of the network is due to start in January 1997, with a full service foreseen for March 1997.