[1711] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
re: nsfnet as large-scale testbed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Glenn Kowack)
Fri Dec 13 07:13:24 1991
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1991 13:11:29 +0100
From: glenn@mcsun.EU.net (Glenn Kowack)
To: Charles_K._Kuhlman.MAN@rxg.xerox.com, com-priv@psi.com
> From: Charles_K._Kuhlman.MAN@rxg.xerox.com
> Subject: re: nsfnet as large-scale testbed
> To: com-priv@psi.com
>
> Ken Laws writes:
> <unrelated to advances in communications technology, except as it ends
> criticism that we are losing the high-speed networking race to Japan and
> Europe.>
> Who says? Europe may be doing a lot of research, but no deployment. You can't
> even get a 2.4k modem line to stay up longer than 5 minutes over here.
> Reliability? Nope. Service. Double-nope.
> There is no significant high speed-wide area networking (I'm talking about
> >19.2kbs, much less ANYTHING over 56kbs!) being done outside of the USA.
> End of story. There are always exceptions and I'm sure
> that this note will bring them out........
Although Europe is certainly behind the US, it is by no means in
the stone age as described above.
EUnet itself consists of interconnected national networks in 22
contries between Iceland and Moscow and as far south as Tunisia.
We exploy leased lines running TCP/IP (usually with Cisco routers)
between those coutries and our Amsterdam operations center at CWI,
including:
256 kb to CERN (as part of the CERN-Amsterdam link consortium)
192 kb to Stockholm (as a contributor to NORDUnet)
64 kb to the University of Dortmund, Germany
64 kb to the University of Kent/Canterbury, England
64 kb to INRIA in Paris, France
128 kb to UUnet (and from there to NSFnet) in Virginia
Our reliability is on the order of that of the Regionals in the US.
We also reliably run many dial-up systems to more difficult locations
including Poland, Bulgaria, Moscow, and elsewhere. Our traffic
is doubling every 12-18 months on many links.
We connect just under 2500 sites across Europe. Our InterEUnet
service serves 291 of the 912 IP networks which have European
IP connectivity coordinated by RIPE. 756 of these networks have
NSFnet connectivity representing 18% of all NSFnet connected
networks.
There are many other networks in Europe including NORDUnet, HEPnet,
EARN, and a large number of national networks, some of which today
employ 2 mb lines across many nodes.
Looking to the future, there are many initiatives taking
place at the European level including the RARE Operational Unit
and Ebone 92. My sense is that Europe has recently made a significant
shift to practical networking manifested by acceptance of IP.
That and the number of nets and links deployed make it appear that
Europe is achieving critical mass in networking and will accelerate
in its growth rate.
Glenn Kowack
EUnet Chief Executive
