1993
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- DANTE, a non-profit, limited liability organisation is created.
- Operating in Cambridge, UK, with 8 staff & €3 million annual turnover, DANTE takes over principal international backbone for European research community.
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1995
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- Connecting 10 countries, EuropaNet2 is first network provided by DANTE.
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1996
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- In its lifetime EuropaNet2 grows transatlantic connectivity from 3.5Mbps to 26Mbps.
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1997
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- TEN34 is the next generation pan-European network offering 13 countries speeds of 34Mbps.
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1998
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- TEN-155 has access capacities of 155Mbps across 15 European countries. Many upgrades follow.
- Network uses IP over ATM – a popular approach at the time. ATM provides efficient management of underlying capacity provided by the SDH & PDH circuits provided by the operators. It provides a “Managed Bandwidth Service” (an ATM-based circuit service analogous to today’s GÉANT Plus service).
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1999
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- EU-led liberalisation of European telecoms market opens previously closed markets to competition. Prices drop as monopolies fall.
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2000
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- The GÉANT network is built in less than a year.
- Network services provided to 31 countries, 3,000 organisations & 27 European NRENs.
- Over the next decade, the available capacity on the network for researchers increases by a factor of 60 from 155Mbps to 10Gbps.
- EC uses GÉANT as blueprint for future networks across the world– DANTE’s role grows to become the global coordinator of these very large-scale projects.
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2001
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- DANTE re-tenders US contracts for commodity IP service & contracts ISPs in Europe for the first time. It commits with 2 ISPs to provide a total of 2 Gbps of traffic for its European NREN subscribers.
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Mediterranean – EC signs €12.25 million contract for EUMEDCONNECT to connect southern Mediterranean region.
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2002
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- Full native (so-called “dual stack”) support for IPv6 is enabled in the GÉANT backbone.
- DANTE & partners write internet history transferring 1215 terabit metres per second using standard TCP transfer over IPv6.
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2003
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Latin America - EC signs €12.5 million contract with DANTE to connect 18 countries to GÉANT via ALICE research network.
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2004
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- Scientists across Europe benefit from €93 million EC grant to upgrade GÉANT for faster, more powerful services.
- Mediterranean - After 3 years of planning EUMEDCONNECT network is live and by 2005 connects 7 North African & Middle Eastern countries and 2 million users.
- GÉANT enables sharpest view in Universe. Europe’s radio-astronomers can observe transient objects at edge of Universe.
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South-Eastern European region – The SEEREN network connects 4 additional NRENs to GÉANT.
- First phase of a feasibility study for an R&E network for the Asia Pacific region (TEIN2).
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2005
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- Next generation of GÉANT uses dark fibre network offering switched point-to-point connections ‘light paths’ in addition to normal IP traffic.
- GÉANT now serves 3 million researchers in 34 countries – world’s largest interconnected community of its kind.
- GÉANT receives resounding vote of approval from European Commission reviewers.
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2006
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Asia Pacific – After 2004 feasibility study, first large-scale R&E network for the region, TEIN2 links 10 countries at speeds up to 622Mbps.
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China - DANTE coordinates ORIENT - new collaborative Sino-European project to connect R&E networks of China & Europe.
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2007
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- DANTE drives supercomputing as DEISA increases connectivity ten-fold to 10Gbps, through links designed & deployed by GÉANT.
- GÉANT reaches 37 countries outside of Europe.
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2008
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- GÉANT provides connectivity to CERN’s new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Computing Grid infrastructure.
- DANTE announces ORIENT network use in Sichuan earthquake recovery project.
- TEIN3 builds on success of TEIN2 and extends footprint across South Asia.
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2009
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- DANTE creates Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Cambridge providing effective 24-hour support service. (Previously outsourced).
- Next generation GÉANT backbone announced connecting 40 million users through 50,000 kms of optical fibre.
- Project receives €93 million funding to run the network and manage research programmes to develop innovative network architecture, technologies and services.
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Black sea region – EC announces South Caucasus countries connected to GÉANT, enabling Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to collaborate with European peers.
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Central Asia – €5 million EU contract funds CAREN network interconnecting 500 institutions across 5 countries, and rest of Europe via GÉANT.
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2011
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- European Bioinformatics Institute drives genomics research with GÉANT to help biologists share vital data across globe.
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Sub-Saharan Africa - DANTE announces first point-to-point circuit between GÉANT & UbuntuNet Alliance - first step in connecting the region.
- ELCIRA – DANTE and partners coordinate tools and services to support collaborative work between Europe and Latin America.
- Via GÉANT’s connections to networks in other world regions, EUMEDCONNECT3 is the next-gen gateway for researchers in seven Mediterranean countries to be truly global players.
- DANTE and TEIN* Co-operation Center (TEIN*CC) sign Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on projects to benefit research and education community in Asia-Pacific region.
- ORIENTplus further develops infrastructure between GÉANT and China, enabling innovative EU-China research and applications to flourish.
- DICE is an operational collaboration between European and North American R&E partners focusing on optimising transatlantic networking operations. Europe is represented through GÉANT. In 2011, service pilots worked to ensure that diagnostic & dynamic circuit-provisioning tools used by the DICE partners and participating NRENs in Europe, and regional networks in the US can interoperate, providing seamless end-to-end services.
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Arab States – ASREN network partners with EUMEDCONNECT3 as first stage in creating pan-Arab R&E network - potentially serves 250 million people.
- Ground -breaking international research project (DECIDE) uses GÉANT to help doctors make earlier, more informed diagnoses of Alzheimer's Disease.
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2012
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- Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN3) connects over 50 million researchers & scientists across 16 Asian countries.
- DANTE announces Caribbean's first dedicated R&E network as C@ribnet connects to GÉANT.
- DANTE hands over project responsibilities to TEIN*CC as part of long-term sustainability plan for research and education networking in Asia Pacific and Europe.
- GÉANT helps LHC unlock mysteries of the universe with discovery of Higgs Boson particle.
- DANTE and partners receive “Excellent” by the EC in the annual GÉANT project review.
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2013
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GÉANT connects 43 European NRENs and over 50 million users at 10,000 institutions.
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GÉANT reaches 66 countries outside Europe.
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DANTE wins European Commission ‘Excellent Science’ & Computer Weekly ‘Best Technology’ awards.
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DANTE & partners announce world’s first 100G transatlantic R&E network.
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DANTE & Infinera announce fastest known provisioning of multi-Terabit capacity across a live network - 2 Terabits in less than 12 minutes.
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DANTE announces Terabit upgrade across the entire European backbone.
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Today DANTE has 70 staff and a €50 million annual turnover.
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Researchers, academics and students across Europe and China benefit from 10Gbps ORIENTplus upgrade.
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DANTE World Service still provides commodity IP for most European NRENs. Total capacity has increased 25 times and prices have reduced over 100 times since 2001.
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