The Evolution Of The Pan-European Research Network

Since its creation in 1993, DANTE has played a pivotal role in the creation and management of four consecutive generations of pan-European research network: EuropaNET, TEN-34, TEN-155, GÉANT and now GÉANT2. All these networks have been established and supported in the context of European Union programmes, such as the Research and Development Framework Programmes and eEurope.

From 1993 to 1997, EuropaNET was developed. It connected 18 countries at speeds of 2Mbps and used IP technology.
From 1997 to 1998, TEN-34 was developed, again connecting 18 countries, but now at speeds of 34Mbps and using both IP and ATM technology.
From 1998 to 2001, TEN-155 was developed, connecting 19 countries at speeds of between 155 and 622 Mbps, again using IP and ATM technologies.
From 2001 to 2005, the GÉANT network connected 30 countries at speeds of between 2.5 and 10Gbps. It too used IP and ATM technologies.
Since 2005, the GÉANT2 network has been gradually taking on Europe's research and education network traffic, as the network has been rolled out. At completion, it will connect 34 countries at speeds of up to 10Gbps.

The development of each generation of network has typically been undertaken as a project involving a consortium of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) with DANTE acting as a managing or coordinating partner. In many cases the name of the project is also given to the network itself – hence, for example, the TEN-34 network emerged from the TEN-34 project, and the GÉANT network was the result of the GÉANT project.

As well as steadily improving pan-European research network connectivity, this networks have been used to conduct a number of test programmes, focussing primarily on ATM and Quality of Service. These have been carried out by Task Forces, such as Task Force TEN (TF-TEN), TF-TANT (Testing of Advanced Networking Technologies) and TF-NGN (New Generation Networks).