SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES

1. Broadband Interconnection of National Research and Education Networks
2. Concerted Actions on European Broadband Inter-connectivity
3. Interconnection of advanced communications testbeds, and related transmission experiments
4. Functional integration and systems validation within advanced communications testbeds

1. Broadband Interconnection of National Research and Education Networks

RTD objective(s):

• the supply of trans-European broadband interconnections between national research, education and training networks at capacities and of a quality matching the aggregated need of Europe’s academic and industrial researchers, and the services available nationally;
• to keep the resulting network at the forefront of the state of the art. This would imply an upgrading of the existing capacity of 34 Mbits/s via 622 Mbits/s to gigabits/s, introducing support for different levels of ‘Quality of Service’ and the necessary connectivity to other geographic regions in order to confirm the global role of European research.
• This action will support effective European collaborative research and education activities (including the creation of "virtual laboratories" and "virtual institutes"), through the deployment of state of the art network-based applications within the academic and industrial research communities.

Main type of action:

Accompanying Measure (for service procurement)

Specific selection criteria:

• number of Research Networks interconnected
• bandwidth sizes and distribution
• reduction in average cost per interconnection per Mbit/s
• advanced services provided
• Quality of Services, including contractual guarantees

Expected call dates: March 1999 - March 2001

Annotations:

What are the expected economic and societal benefits of the proposed work ?

It will significantly increase the number of researchers and students who are able to collaborate with peers in other countries.

Why does this work need to be undertaken at European level ?

Each Member-State has set-up its own National Research Network. The trans-European interconnection of these must be co-ordinated at European level to facilitate European collaboration of the same quality as national collaboration. Connections with third countries should be improved at the European level in order to ensure equality of access and best value for money.

Relative priority in the context of the activity: FIRST

Expected share of the year's budget of the activity: TBD

How might progress/impact of the action line's objectives be monitored ?

• benefits found, and direct utilisation made by IST’s own RTD projects
• regular reports on network usage
• regular feedback from several user communities on their perceived QoS

Will it be necessary to make further specifications or restrictions at the time of a call:

No (unless a specific need appears)

2. Concerted Actions on European Broadband Inter-connectivity

RTD objective(s):

• to gather and consolidate the needs of research and university users concerning broadband inter-connectivity needed to support their work in terms of capacities, services and quality;
• to gather experience on application experiments and related traffic measurement;
• to promote, in international forums (e.g. G8), a co-ordinated European approach towards the connectivity needed to other geographic regions;
• to promote the take-up of Europe’s pre-normative results within other centres of excellence around the world;
• to disseminate information on European inter-connectivity status and plans to potential users.

Main type of action:

Accompanying Measure

Specific selection criteria:

• relevance, number and size of user organisations represented
• openness of the approach

Expected call dates: March 1999 - March 2001

Annotations:

What are the expected economic and societal benefits of the proposed work ?

This action will ensure that the services provided by the other Research Networking actions will effectively support real needs of European collaborative research and education activities and will in itself accelerate the take-up of art network-based applications within the academic and industrial research communities.

Why does this work need to be undertaken at European level ?

Each Member-State has already set-up its own National Research Network and is continuing to develop this in function of its own national needs. A European consolidation of these needs is essential to ensure efficient service provision suited to the requirements of end users.

Relative priority in the context of the activity: Second

Expected share of the year's budget of the activity: ...%

How might progress/impact of the action line's objectives be monitored ?

• relevance and number of user organisations participating
• scale of international participation in EU RTD and experiments, that is supported by these network facilities

Will it be necessary to make further specifications or restrictions at the time of a call: No

3. Interconnection of advanced communications testbeds, and related transmission experiments

RTD Objective(s)

• To provide and operate experimental communications links (including any international links) between the sites of individual testbeds, ensuring that no commercial traffic is transported.
• To support the practical experimentation of RTD Projects using two or more such interconnected test-bed facilities, and by ensuring interoperability at bearer level and below.
• To ensure timely availability of the links, and a general responsiveness to the needs of RTD projects being supported.

Main Type of Action

Accompanying Measure (Procurement)

Specific selection criteria

The consortium is self sufficient, and can provide evidence that it owns or that it is able to procure within the timescale required, the necessary facilities and links.

The consortium will be non-discriminatory in the "access" it offers to individual testbeds and projects

The consortium is open to co-operation with other autonomous, yet similar initiatives around the world.

Expected call dates Continuous from date of first IST Call

Annotations

What are the expected economic and societal benefits of the proposed work?

This line of action will directly support the practical research and experimentation being undertaken on the sites of advanced communications testbeds. Given that the communications links are to be used only for experimental purposes and that these experiments will be close to the own-interests of the organisations concerned, it is to be expected that they can be procured under favourable financial terms.

Why does this work need to be undertaken at European level ?

Testbeds are to be established in more than one European country. Their interconnection requires the provision Trans-European, and some international communications links.

Relative priority in the context of the activity: FIRST

Expected share of the year's budget of the activity: (not agreed within Quad)

How might progress/impact of the action line's objectives be monitored?

This line of action may be monitored directly through the level of take-up it attracts from the RTD projects of IST. If there is little or no take-up, there should be little or no eligible costs incurred, irrespective of the value of the contract(s) that may be engaged.

Will it be necessary to make further specifications or restrictions at the time of a call?

All signs are that the Sector Actors will insist on a clear distinction between this Line of Action, and others related to research networking. The continuous call "Interconnection of advanced communications testbeds, and related transmission experiments" will serve essentially to establish a series of Framework Contracts, (cf. existing procurement contracts for exhibitions and publications) under which expenditure may be incurred as and when necessary. It would thus be normal for a more detailed specification to be prepared for the competitive procurement itself. A continuous call is preferable as the nature of the interconnections required by projects may not be 100% covered by any single consortium put in place at the beginning of the programme.

4. Functional integration and systems validation within advanced communications testbeds

RTD Objectives

• To accelerate the formulation, validation and adoption of open interfaces, common standards and codes of practice by network operators, service providers and their supporting industries. To ensure end-to-end compatibility, interoperability, and seamless performance within and amongst services and networks that are owned and operated separately, in an environment where markedly different technologies implemented by a range of manufacturers - will continue to co-exist, even in the long term (Eg due to different rates of regional development and deployment).
• To validate the extent to which experimental services and networks are fit for purpose, in the context of known commercial applications, and those emerging from other lines of research
• To progressively develop a wide variety of test-bed facilities, each located in different countries and based on different manufacturers’ equipments. To support an organic expansion of each testbed’s architecture and systems through the integration of new sub-systems and technologies
• To evaluate individual RTD project contributions to the testbed, as part of an integrated communications system. To conduct practical experimentation on the interoperability and levels of interworking possible amongst two or more of such test-bed facilities, at bearer level and above, including assessment of quality of service, flexibility and robustness of design in search of a sustainable evolutionary approach to deployment. To ensure availability of the test-bed facilities to RTD projects for their own experimentation in these fields.

Main Type of Action: Cost-shared RTD

Specific Selection Criteria

The consortium is self sufficient, and can provide evidence that it already owns or is operating advanced testbed facilities of this kind.

The consortium will be non discriminatory in the "access" it offers to individual projects

The consortium is open to co-operation with other autonomous, yet similar initiatives around the world.

Expected Call Dates: Continuous from date of first IST Call.

Annotations

What are the expected economic and societal benefits of the proposed work?

This line of action will encourage technological compatibility and convergence under precompetitive and prenormative conditions. It will ensure that by the time products are ready to be launched under competitive market conditions, they will be fit for purpose and proven to interwork with rival manufacturers offerings. This is critical to risk-reduction in relation to the very high levels of investment that manufacturers and operators in particular are expected to make. Society itself will benefit from a familiar and "seamless" operation of communications services that can continue to be supported despite rapid technological evolution of the underlying infrastructure and consumer products.

Why does this work need to be undertaken at European level ?

Communications is a global business and issues of inter-operation and interconnection need to be addressed primarily at a global level. There are very significant commercial and economic advantages to be gained from European industries leading the convergence process, and rolling out European solutions across the world. This may best follow from global-level standards that are strongly influenced by European leadership in the technologies. (Eg GSM mobile telephony).

Relative priority in the context of the activity: FIRST

Expected share of the year's budget of the activity: (not agreed within Quad)

How might progress/impact of the action line's objectives be monitored?

This line of action may be monitored directly through the level of take-up it attracts from the RTD projects of IST. If there is little or no take-up, there should be little or no eligible costs incurred, irrespective of the value of the contract(s) that may be engaged.

The nature of its impact on standardisation, codes of practice and the convergence of industries will depend on the nature of the Projects experiments that this Line of Action supports. For example, if this line of action supports a project developing intelligent agents for service provision, the impact would be seen in bodies such as TINA-C and OMG, and in the related software industries.

Will it be necessary to make further specifications or restrictions at the time of a call? No

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