EBONE is established as an Association and prepares for 34 Mbps =============================================================== The Ebone association --------------------- In the recent past Ebone, a European Network providing Internet IP and ISO CLNS, has gained substantial stability and its prospects for the future are clear. Ebone enjoys a rapidly expanding membership, both in terms of capacity and in terms of new members organizations. Seeing this high demand it is no surprise that Ebone is being upgraded continuously. From 1 July 1994 to the end of January 1995, the overall backbone and trans Atlantic capacity will be increased by a factor of 75 % to 12 Mbps. This proves the strong need for Ebone services, therefore the Ebone Consortium of Contributing Organizations decided to re-model Ebone into an Association to provide further stability also in legal terms. On 2 November 1994 the Ebone Association was formed under French law. Its first Executive Committee officers are: - Christian Michau from Renater, France, President, - Peter Rastl from ACONET, Austria, Vice-President, - Dave Morton from ECRC, Germany, Treasurer and - Dennis Jennings from HEANET, Ireland, Secretary. Technical development --------------------- The global Internet is developing at a speed without parallel, with connected organizations multiplying exponentially. A serious challenge to the Internet infrastructure capacity is the so-called multicast services that have recently found a growing market. Therefore Ebone is configuring multicast using Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) in its PoPs in order to reduce multiplication of multicast packets. This new development will be operational by the end of January 1995. Ebone configuration planned for January 1995 -------------------------------------------- Vienna 2048 Munich EBS--------ACONET (AT) US (GIX) ------------EBS / CARnet (HR) | / CESNET (CZ) | / Hungarnet (HU) 2048 | /1536 NASK (PL) | / Roman. AC net (RO) | / SANET (SK) 3584 Paris 2048 Geneva US (GIX) -------------EBS-----------EBS -------ILAN (IL) | | RENATER (FR) BELNET (BE) BT (UK) CINECA (IT) DATAnet (FI) ECRC (DE) FCCN (PT) FCRU (EG) FORTH (GR) HEANET (IE) Internetway (FR) Lisbon University (PT) PIPEX (UK) SwipNet (SE) Tipnet (SE) Transpac (FR) Transpac (SE) Plans for 1995 and beyond: 34 Mbps and more. ------------------------------------------- The Ebone Association with its state-of-the art-capabilities in terms of equipment, manpower and routing, is in an excellent position to start piloting 34 Mbps networking for research in Europe in order to provide high speed services, compliant with the Bangemann report. Ebone is looking for participation to its initiative to organize a framework for interconnecting between service providers (peering) at 34 Mbps in Europe. Ebone is also interested in participating in the ACTS programme and sees the interconnection of the ACTS's National Hosts as a highly valuable contribution to coordination of national interconnections in Europe. Ebone will put forward a proposal to the EC in the framework of ACTS. For more information contact: Christian Michau, Ebone chairman, Renater, France, phone +33 14427 4260, fax +33 14427 2613, e-mail christian.michau@urec.fr Frode Greisen, Ebone general manager, UNI-C, Denmark, phone +45 3582 8355, fax +45 3183 7949, e-mail frode.greisen@uni-c.dk