Europe is taking the lead on the Data Highway
Press Release
T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s IT and telecommunications service provider, and DANTE, on behalf of the European Consortium of National Research and Education Networks, today announced the signature of a multi-million Euro deal for the provision of capacity to the pan-European research network GÉANT
5 July 2001 - GÉANT is a four-year project set up by a Consortium of 27 European national research and education networks (NRENs), with DANTE as its co-ordinating partner. Co-funded by the European Commission as part of its Framework V Programme, its goal is the improvement of the current pan-European research network by creating a backbone at Gigabit speeds. GÉANT serves the European research community by supplying it with a number of services, including testbed and guaranteed QoS features. Reaching over 3,000 research and education institutions in over 30 countries, GÉANT will provide the highest capacity and will offer the greatest geographic coverage of any network of its kind in the world and will be fully operational in November 2001.
As a result of a public procurement, T-Systems has been awarded the provision of capacity to the Central and Eastern European part of the network, with speeds of 2.5 and 10 Gigabits/sec, making it one of the key suppliers of connectivity to GÉANT.
"We've always been impressed by T-Systems excellent track record of delivery and are very pleased that they will contribute to making GÉANT a complete success", says Dai Davies, General Manager of DANTE. "They offered us a competitive solution in an area of Europe not so well developed and we were struck by their thoroughness in taking into account the implications of the network's implemention".
"For T-Systems, this project demonstrates the growing demand for international networks. We support GÉANT with our expertise in this field and provide them with efficient international telecommunications networks", says Christian A. Hufnagl, chairman of the T-Systems management board.
About T-Systems:
T-Systems is Europe's No. 2 systems house, with some 37,000 employees (as of January 31, 2001) and annual revenues of approximately ÿ11 billion. Deutsche Telekom has identified convergent solutions as one of its four strategic growth areas alongside mobile telephony, internet communications and network connectivity. The new company is the first to combine global capabilities in information technology (IT) and telecommunications. T-Systems draws its strength in IT from debis IT Services–a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom AG (50.1 percent share) and DaimlerChrysler Services AG (49.9 percent)–and its strength in telecommunications from Deutsche Telekom. In February 2001, T-Systems was officially launched in Germany and more than 20
countries worldwide.
Further information on the company and its service offering is available online at:
http://www.t-systems.de
About the NREN Consortium:
The NREN Consortium consists of 27 European national and regional research and education networks who have committed to taking part in GÉANT for the duration of the project, with DANTE as a co-ordinating partner. These NRENs provide network services to research organisations, universities and other education institutions in a total of 31 countries across Europe.
About DANTE:
Since its creation in 1993, DANTE has been responsible for four consecutive generations of European research networks, and is active in the ongoing development of European research networking. DANTE is owned by a number of European research networks and has "Research Association" status
in the UK. It plans, builds and manages international networking services on their behalf. The pan-European 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. DANTE has developed a range of interconnectivity agreements with other national research networks, such as ESnet, Abilene and the Internet2 project in the United States, CANARIE in Canada and NII in Japan.
More information on DANTE and on GÉANT can be found on the DANTE web site at http://www.dante.net
Contacts:
T-Systems
Stefan König
Public Relations
Email: presse@t-systems.de
Tel: +49 069 66531-126
Fax: +49 069 66531-139
DANTE
Marine Chartois
External Relations Manager
press@dante.org.uk
Tel: +44 1223 302 992
Fax: +44 1223 303 005
