012.35 RENATER (Reseau National de Telecommunication pour l'Enseignement et la Recherche) by Christian Huitema Following plans established in 1991 by the French ministries of Education, Research, and Post & Telephone, a national network for research and education in France is now being launched. Its services will be open to any public or private institution for research and education purposes. Renater is being organized as a legal structure - Groupement Renater - associating the various research and education institutions. Its Chairman is Dr Pierre COUTURIER, who was previously Associate Director of the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers. Renater is contracting to France Telecom the provision and the management of the national infrastructure for an initial period of 4 years. In fact, France Telecom will provide two separate infrastructures for Internet-IP and X.25. The IP backbone network (RNI : Reseau National d'Interconnexion) will link together the regional networks already in place or being established in the different regions of France. The X25 service is built as a virtual network supported by the new high speed backbone of the Transpac network. At the moment, a pilot service is being experimented between Ile de France, Caen, and Toulouse based on 2 Mbps links. The backbone will be developed in 1992, and will provide 2 Mbps connectivity to regional networks before the end of the year. From the beginning of 1993, the backbone will be extended to give 34 Mbps IP capacity to at least 4 regions (Ile de France, Rhone-Alpes, Provence-Cote d'Azur, and Midi Pyrennees); a smooth migration to ATM is part of the contract with France Telecom and is currently scheduled to start in 1994. An ISO-CLNS service is presently under investigation and could be included as a service from 1993. For more information, contact Christian Michau .