E: A European Backbone Takes ShapeINTE OPERABILITY

EBO

TE T 0 I

parti ipate. Th key to EB NEi very carefully wordedmemorandum of under tand­ing-wording that w offen iveto the Ie t number of people.

Afraid of upsetting the PTT ?M ke ure t call this "value­added networ ." What about theI 0 camp? Mak it an "open, val­u dded network." Th Trans­m' ion ontr I Pf t I people?Make it an "open, multiprotocol,value- dded netw rk."

ventu 1­Iy, the volun­tary 011 or­tium will gaw y in f: v rof me pro­fe ionalgroup thatwill run a Eu­ropean bbone. M

whit , each of the participantagre to contributc omething.

For som gr ups, e . ting line-r reallocated that all ENE

traffIC ov r them. therorganiza giv pc pi , routersor nctW rk m n gemcnt.

Ell NE i a OIK.'-ycar v lun­tary effi rt. At the t-nd f n 'xt yt'ar,aU the f rc 0 back t the

riginal org nization. MaybeEll NEwill be extended fi r1993, but maybe a fonnal organi­zati n wiU be in place by then.

For 1992, tit. ther will be afunctioning backbone. ourpoints-on in the north, ne inthe south and two in central Eu­rope-arc the EBONE hubs.

Two links to the United t tepr vi tTong Inten :t COfU1t.'Ctivi­ty. Tail circui coni v rious r ­gi llal y tem. The remaininqucs . n . how many met..'tinp rti .pan n corwin e theirman gemc..-nt to kt them i'n up.

EB NE hows that users canc ntr I their nctw rks. It i n t

ry to wait for ovemmcntto act. Whil not a perm nent solu­tion, it' certainly nc mod I oftarting infrastructure.

Ideally, of course, B Nw uld have been tarted with thehelp f thc European 'ommi i n.Like the U. . N . uI .

da' , it could have rted thefrort, then ught a way to m ke

it 'If- u taining. But whc..-n ov­emmt...n become p ralyzed, tht.TCi till th . pas ibility fi r individu Ist c Iltrol their own d tinies.

('0 "I(' TIO I';I';K

ARL MALAMUD. TIi Alff)1 R

X K • HA JU iT HAD PU8USH

. A K : INTER P RABIUTY IN TOMPUTER N WORK'

(PR NTI HALL. IWI). H VIEWS

EXI'R '0 AR HI OWN.

abl is the wide vari ty of orga­nizations repr ented in thi vo­luntary consortium. More than3S groups wer pr ent at theZoo, including th CERN phys­ics laboratory in Gen va, veraltel communications authoriti ,universiti , regional netWorand even IBM.

Not all of th will rily

Sprint.Mad for data~

Ke s Negg r ,an mploye ofSurfuet, the r gional n tworkfor plac like the Netherlandsand B Igium. Kees work d withgroup such as EUnet, whichhas comm rcial link to theUnited States, and Nordunet,which is th r gional networkfor th Scandinavian countri .

What makes EBONE remark-

technologies. Virtual ordedicated configurations.And real f1 xibility forfuture growth.

If you'd lik to knowmore, call us at 1-800-800-1522.We'll have detailed infor­mation in your fax machin

in minut s. And w '11 show you the rightway to conn ct IBM sy terns. On a net­w rk that was literally mad for them.

I

waiting for Godot. The Europe­an Commission, with its mon­ey, seemed a likely place to geta pan-European network. TheEuropean Commission spawnedlots of~, but its focus onX.25 and Open Syst ms intercon­nection to the dusion of otherprotocols paralyzed it.

The EBONE effort w led by

The Sprint· network.It has 100% digital switches.And 100% fiber optic trans­mission. Nationwide. Andfrom th very beginning, itwas made to send data.

Especially data that comesin large blue blocks. Becausewe have solutions for networking every­thing from mainframes to mid-rangesyst ms to LANs. Including SNA back­bon , peer-to-peer networks, andremot -to-host conn ctivity.

We also give you circuit switch d,packet switched, or private line

AM TERDAM. NETHERLANDs-On

Oct. 30, at the Tiger Room oftheAmsterdam Zoo, history tookplace. A group of European net­works, users and computer com­panies got together and decidedthat they would pool their reo­sam and form a Europeanbackbone.

For years, Europe has been

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