JAMES: European high-speed backbone at your service

Athens, 18-10 -1996 On 30 September 1996 the Joint ATM Experiment on European Services (JAMES) an experimental Pan-European ATM network was officially launched at an opening ceremony in Sophia-Antipolis, France. With JAMES, European operators are moving from a technology trial to a pre-competitive market trial involving providers and users of broadband networks and pilot projects. The project is co-funded by the EC and the network operators.

Building on the success of the European ATM Pilot, eighteen of Europeís network operators have joined in a consortium called JAMES (Joint ATM Experiment on European Services) to work on further R&D into ATM technology and to continue experiments of advanced high-speed services and applications.

Between July 1994 and December 1995, the European ATM Pilot project conducted extensive field trials of ATM technology throughout the European Union. More than 160 users ran high bandwidth applications across the network, ranging from large file transfer and multimedia mail to interactive real-time desktop collaboration.

Now with JAMES, European operators are taking the next step, moving from a technology trial to a pre-competitive market trial involving providers and users of broadband networks and pilot projects. The project is co-funded by the EC and the network operators.

The two-year project is a major milestone in the development of broadband communications services throughout Europe. It is also a significant contribution to the objectives of the GIBN (Global Interoperability for Broadband Networks) Pilot Project initiated at the G7 Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in Brussels in February 1995.

The eighteen operators (Belgacom, BT, Deutsche Telekom, FINNET International, France Telecom, OTE, Portugal Telecom, Post & Telekom Austria, PTT Telecom Netherlands, P&T Luxembourg, Swiss Telecom PTT, Telecom Eireann, Telecom Finland, Telecom Italia, TeleDanmark, Telefonica de Espana, Telenor and Telia) are engaged in joint R&D, pilot implementations and demonstrations in two main areas :

ATM-based interconnect services of fixed or variable capacity such as high-speed IP services, Switched Multimegabit Data Services (SMDS), variable bit rate (VBR) connections, LAN internetworking and switched virtual circuit (SVC) services;
ATM-based interactive multimedia applications in anticipation of emerging demands of the research community and other advanced users.

All these experiments will be run over an ATM service built on the multi-vendor infrastructure established for the European ATM Pilot. The high-speed backbone (34 Mbit/s initially) will link over 20 National Research Networks and 50 National Hosts spanning 17 countries. Upwards of 120 Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS), Trans-European Network - Integrated Broadband Services (TEN-IBC), Telematics Research & Technological Development (RTD) and other EC-funded projects will be connected.

As a result, the JAMES consortium is responding to two European Commission initiatives :-

A joint Telematics/Esprit initiative for the validation of advanced services for the European research and university networks at 34-155 Mbit/s;
A call under the ACTS 1994-1998 Framework Programme for the networking of National Host facilities.

European operators say they are fully committed to the goals and early realisation of the project and have committed over 2,000 person-months in addition to providing the trans-European ATM infrastructure (transmission, switching equipment, management systems).

The members of the JAMES consortium intent to interact closely with the European research community and other interested user groups to ensure that the results meet the requirements of end users for multimedia and other broadband applications. The JAMES Users Board has been specifically established to address this issue.

The opening ceremony of JAMES was attended by representatives from the operators, the European Commission, users of the network and manufacturers whose equipment is used to implement the Europe-wide network.

It did include presentations from Mr Hoppenstedt, Member of the European Parliament; Mr Archambault, Director at the French Ministry for Industry, Post and Telecommunication and Mr Verrue, General Director of DGXIII at the European Commission. Mr Verrue participates via a video link from Brussels to Sophia provided over the JAMES ATM network.

Information on the project can be found on the at JAMES WWW pages .

Anna Markou