A GEANT Leap Forward In Networking For Research

An anonymous reader contributes: "A research backbone network interconnecting more than 30 countries, through which hundreds of universities can exchange traffic, with a backbone running at 10 Gbps, born on the 1st of December. Yes, it exists, and this research network is not even in the U.S.! GEANT is a european initiative which has just come online, so if you're a student in Europe, you may have noticed a significant change in your downloads speeds since last week. You can even check its weathermap! Well, obviously backbone links are still unused ... but that shouldn't last long, once people notice the sheer amount of bandwidth."

Comments

Not even in the US?

[Spamuel]

"Yes, it exists, and this research network is not even in the U.S.!"

As if that's something hard to believe... considering the fast networks already developed and in development in Canada and Japan you'd think we could give other countries the credit they deserve. It's not like the US is the only country that knows how to string an Ethernet cable.

Re:Outside the US

[jallen02]

I know it is sarcasm, but you have to remember one thing when comparing why these cool networks are possible in europe so easily and they take more time in the states. The amount of cable and infrastructure required. In Europe everything is more dense and closely located, so sure they can lay out the networking infrastructure for something like this easily

In the states? Not quite so easy... due to the simple fact of the size. Same reason we don't have GSM, same reason all these nifty technologies (anything wireless) take time.

Jeremy

Re:BEFORE YOU REPLY

[drsquare]

Oh fuck off. The Europeans are there to be made fun of. Taking the piss out of frogs and krauts is almost as fun as taking the piss out of women/blacks/muslims/queers etc.