Subject: n-1-4-012.20

SuperJANET Announced

The Universities Funding Council (UFC) announced on 10
November the development of SuperJANET, an advanced
communications network for higher education in Great Britain.
The contract for the new venture which has been won by BT is
worth L18 million over four years, subject to a review at the end
of the installation of the pilot phase.  SuperJANET will offer
higher education and research institutions in Great Britain the
opportunity to access the most advanced communications service
to support learning and research activities.

SuperJANET, which uses high performance optical fibre technology
can be used to transmit voice, data and images.  The applications
available initially will include: high performance computing,
distance learning, electronic publishing, library document
distribution, medical imaging and multimedia information
services.  A pilot network will be established in January to
March 1993 which will connect six sites: Cambridge, Edinburgh and
Manchester Universities, Imperial College of Science, Technology
and Medicine and University College, London, and the SERC
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.  Additional sites will be added
during 1993-94 reaching a total of around 50.  Further sites may
be added subject to additional funding.

SuperJANET will complement the Joint Academic Network (JANET)
which has served the academic community since 1983 on 200 sites.
The advantages of the new network lie in its speed and the types
of applications that it can support.  SuperJANET can transmit up
to 1,000 millions bits of information per second, about 1,000
times faster than the JANET.  This high speed allows the
transmission of sophisticated image and voice
communications in addition to data.

SuperJANET is a pervasive high
performance network offering wide opportunities not only for
research but also for teaching applications.  In some areas, for
example medical imaging and the virtual memory library, it will
be possible to develop entirely new applications.  The increased
capability will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UK
higher education, by allowing institutions to develop entirely
new ways of storing, processing and distributing all types of
information.

SuperJANET represents an infrastructure that
spans all academic and research sites and offers a broad spectrum
performance to suit all needs including those of academics,
research institutes, government departments, industry and
commerce.

BT was awarded the contract for the network.
The network is designed to use synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) -
in conjunction with SMDS.

The SuperJANET team regards this as "critical activity if the UK 
educational and research establishments are to feed British industry 
with the necessary skills and expertise over the coming decade."