DANTE Commits to SEEFIRE Project

DANTE has joined ten other partners in the SEEFIRE (South-East Europe Fibre Infrastructure for Research and Education) project, which launched on 1 March 2005. DANTE will be providing specific advice on network procurement and financing, and is also a member of the SEEFIRE steering committee.

SEEFIRE is a special support action co-funded by the European Commission’s FP6 programme. The project’s ultimate aim is to address the digital divide that affects many countries in southern and eastern Europe. The project builds on the results of existing IST projects by producing studies on the options available for network infrastructure, and the strategies for the development of research and education networking in southern and eastern Europe.

Building on the success of SEEREN (South-East Europe Research and Education Network), SEEFIRE will study the options for the deployment of dark fibre and the management of optical transmission by NRENs in the region, placing specific emphasis on the Western Balkan Countries. SEEFIRE will contribute to the preparation of the next generation of the SEEREN network (SEEREN2) by providing the tools and knowledge that may allow southeast European national research and education networks (NRENs) to potentially obtain access to dark fibre. In this respect, it will considerably assist them in long-term sustainability plans.

SEEFIRE will:

• Establish benchmarks of existing and potentially available optical fibre for NRENs in the region
• Analyse the technical options available for the deployment of dark fibre and the management of optical transmission by NRENs in the region
• Report on economic aspects and regulations
• Disseminate information and increase awareness about dark-fibre deployment at both technical and policy-making levels.

A project workshop is planned for late summer 2005, which will focus on the technical and practical aspects of own dark-fibre network deployment.

SEEFIRE’s project partners are:

TERENA (Project Co-ordinator)
DANTE
GRNET, Greece
CESNET, Czech Republic
NIIF/Hungarnet, Hungary
University of Belgrade (AMREJ, the NREN of Serbia and Montenegro)
RoEduNet, Romania
IST Foundation, Bulgaria
The Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje (MARnet, the NREN of FYROM)
The Academy of Sciences of Albania (INIMA)
BIHARNET, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Please visit the SEEFIRE website (www.seefire.org) for further details.