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A Nation-Wide 155 Mbps ATM Academic Network Reaches the Desktop

We are witnessing and ever-growing demand for network bandwidth in Internet. The reason in not only in increase of connected hosts and users but also the deployment of new network applications exchanging images (WWW above all). This reason alone was calling for reconstruction and upgrade of CARNet (Croatian Academic and Research Network) backbone. Of course, this was not the only reason. Audio and video conferences, audio-on-demand, computer-telephony are some of the new technologies requiring high bandwidth and announcing the dawn of the new era in which all types of communication, isochronous as well as data-packet, are integrated in one infrastructure. However, increasing the WAN bandwidth is not enough. Most of those new services require the same or similar changes in LAN environment, too. In addition, virtual LANs are becoming increasingly popular as they improve productivity in dispersed workgroups and enable cooperations previously unimaginable. CARNet was facing all those problems and questions on the change from 1994. to 1995. It decided to deploy a nation-wide 155 Mbps ATM network. This new high-speed backbone core, will cover all four universities as well as five additional campuses the biggest in the country. Special emphasis was put on delivering high-speed ATM services not only to the doorstep of each institution, but to the departmental level or even to the desktop. By the time of the INET'96 conference this network will be completed and even used for the international conference on telemedicine. This paper presents not only design concepts but also the implementation practice including problems and solutions, price comparisons, user acceptance. There was a number of problems in the state-of-the-art products implemented. A story for itself is the problem of structured cabling required for deployment of the nation-wide ATM to the desktop. Such infrastructure is meaningful only with various implementations. Therefore, a variety of pilot projects, already running or in preparation, is presented giving the idea of the future directions.

ATM; academic network; desktop; multimedia; broadband; video conferencing; audio conferencing; virtual LANs; computer-telephony

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