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A GEANT Leap Forward In Networking For Research

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the forget-the-plunger-build-new-pipes dept.

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."

5 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. oh man by Marcus+Brody · · Score: 5, Funny
    You can just imagine it over at Dante right now:

    "Wow, well done guys. Our new multi-gagabyte network is now fully operational"

    "Cheers...."

    "Uh... Boss, hold on...."

    "What?"

    "Someone just posted us to slashdot!"

    *Poof* goes the bandwidth



    Seriously though, if they get slashdotted their really isnt any hope for the rest of us.

  2. Outside the US by pubjames · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    Gosh! Outside the US! In Europe!

    The Europeans really seem to be advancing don't they? A friend of mine visited Europe and told me that they've got TV, computers, mobile telephones, everything! How long before they catch up with the US?

    However, they are still really lagging in cultural things. They don't have that many great places to hang out as in the US like Starbucks or MacDonalds (just little coffee shops and resturants which are all different!) and they don't have so many TV channels (and a lot of the ones they do have are in funny languages!). And they aren't as advanced politically as the US - they don't have the personal freedoms that we have, like the feedom to carry guns and, er, the other freedoms that we have.

    (Yes, this is sarcasm).

    1. Re:Outside the US by onion2k · · Score: 5, Funny

      We have MacDonalds and Starbucks. But we also have enough taste not to frequent them.

      --
      http://twitter.com/onion2k
    2. Re:Outside the US by pubjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      Oh yes, that's right. Europe's easy because it's small. I'd forgotten that. Europe has a tiny land mass of 3,998,000 sq miles, whereas the USA has a massive land mass of 3,717,796 sq miles, according to Encarta. Oh, hang on, those figures can't be right, surely?

      And being lots of different locally governed countries speaking different languages and (until very recently) using differnt currencies - that's got to make things easier, hasn't it!

      The only reason that Europe is ahead of the USA in terms of DSL, GSM and advanced networks is because the USA, being a young country, speaking a single language with virtually a single culture and mindset and single government, well, everything is so much harder for the USA isn't it?

      (Yes, this is more sarcasm)

  3. People seem to be missing ... by Reelworld · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With all the comments about using it for faster downloads, etc, etc, people seem to be missing the fact that it'll only really speed your downloads up if you're accessing another site on GEANT. Personally when I was a student, connecting to other academic sites was never particularly slow - but JANET (the UK academic net) doesn't have particularly good peering to transatlantic links (clearly due to the cost).

    What GEANT will help make more possible is inter-site co-operation, and apps like high bandwidth video streams. In response to the guy who said it was a waste of money - give it time?