Alcatel Press Release: European Research Projects Rely on Alcatel Core, Access Gear to Deliver Future Broadband Applications
Press Release
ATRIUM, GÉANT and MOICANE research networks test dynamic high-speed services
Paris, 21 November 2002 – Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced the Alcatel 7770 IP MPLS core router and the Alcatel 7300 Advanced Services Access Manager (ASAM) are playing a critical role in two European research projects, ATRIUM and MOICANE, that demonstrate innovative communications applications over a highly reliable IP backbone provided by the GÉANT pan-European research network. This was most recently demonstrated at the IST 2002 exhibition in Copenhagen, where the key European research networks jointly showcased easy, seamless and secure communications to deliver high-speed consumer applications such as virtual classrooms and laboratories, multi-party videoconferencing and video on demand.
“Deployment of the Alcatel 7770 IP/MPLS core platform and 7300 access platform in high profile, international networks like these is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how Alcatel’s carrier-class technology will drastically change the reliability and service differentiating capabilities, and as such, the economics of IP networking,” said Michel Rahier, president of broadband networking activities at Alcatel. “The support of GÉANT, operated by DANTE, and the National Research and Education Networks (NREN) for network interconnect support has been key in achieving the current success of the pan-European ATRIUM network, which is greatly appreciated.”
“Our work with the ATRIUM and MOICANE projects advances research into new network services which are needed to support innovative uses of data communications networks across Europe and globally,” said Tomaz Kalin, General Manager of DANTE. “We are very pleased to work with Alcatel, through these two important European research projects, to help keep European research networking in a world-leading position”
“To achieve the sustainable Information Economy in Europe, it is necessary that advanced infrastructures capable of supporting new demanding services and applications are ubiquitously available,” said Pietro Polese of Alcatel Italia, Project Manager of MOICANE. “The realization of an end-to-end new generation IP service capable of supporting Quality of Service communications over a variety of access solutions will be essential for European broadband users and to boost the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises. In particular, through MOICANE’s collaboration with GÉANT, Alcatel is able to show its leading edge IP aware DSL solutions and its family of Telephony over IP solutions for Enterprise, all in a complex environment.”
Demonstrating the truly pan-European nature of these projects, a number of NRENs are involved in the ATRIUM and MOICANE projects. These are BELnet (Belgium), FCCN (Portugal), GARR (Italy), GRNET (Greece), POL-34 (Poland), RedIRIS (Spain), Renater (France) and RoEduNet (Romania). All of these NRENs are members of the GÉANT project which involves a total of 32 NRENs from across Europe. The cooperation of NORDUnet, the Nordic regional network, has been vital to providing connectivity for the demonstrations in Copenhagen.
About ATRIUM (project):
ATRIUM provides the research community with an advanced testbed containing the only European manufactured terabit router so far. To tackle the limitations of the classical shortest path routing, the development of MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) took place. MPLS provides an architectural sublayer able to operate over any datalink infrastructure. The ATRIUM Consortium composed out of universities, manufacturers and network carriers wishes to validate and experiment the above state of the art by deploying an advanced testbed that will additionally support QoS and fast restoration of link or node failures.
About MOICANE (project):
The MOICANE project creates a virtual lab environment on an IP-QoS pilot, where research partners (universities, research institutes, manufacturers and network carriers) can share their knowledge, experience and devices to achieve a profitable synergy. The project is based on a distributed network test-bed interconnecting 9 remote network islands, characterised by different access technologies. (LAN, xDSL, fiber and wireless-DECT, IEEE 802.11d) whose integration a real environment, will allow to analyse the behaviour of advanced applications such as Video-on-Demand and E-learning.
http://www.moicane.com
About GÉANT (project):
GÉANT, the pan-European multi-gigabit research network, enables European scientists to compete on an international stage by providing them with a world-class backbone that offers the bandwidth and the Quality of Service required for research and development activities at this level. It represents the basis for the introduction of "virtual laboratories" and "virtual institutes" in Europe.
http://www.geant.net
About DANTE:
DANTE, a Cambridge, England-based organization set up to build and manage advanced network services for the European Research and Education community, is the co-ordinating partner of the GÉANT consortium and responsible for the construction of GÉANT.
About Alcatel:
Alcatel designs, develops and builds innovative and competitive communications networks, enabling carriers, service providers and enterprises to deliver any type of content, such as voice, data and multimedia, to any type of consumer, anywhere in the world. Relying on its leading and comprehensive products and solutions portfolio, stretching from end-to-end optical infrastructures, fixed and mobile networks to broadband access, Alcatel's customers can focus on optimizing their service offerings and revenue streams. With sales of EURO 25 billion in 2001, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.
Contact: press@alcatel.com
