The National Science Foundation
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Washington, D.C. 20550
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Date:                           Our reference:                   Ref:
88-05-25                        Mats Brunell                     NDN/DOK 88-4:1
 
 
Application for connection to the NSFnet
========================================
 
Dear Sirs,
 
NORDUNET hereby applies for a connection to the NSFnet.
 
 
About NORDUNET and the Nordic situation
---------------------------------------
NORDUNET is a four year cooperative program for the establishment of a harmo-
nized and standardized network infrastructure for research and development in
the Nordic countries. The program is financed by the Nordic Council of
Ministers. The program will end December 31st 1989.
 
The NORDUNET program is carried out in close collaboration with the national
network organizations, and it is committed to work in the following main areas:
 
- OSI-promotion through pilot and experimental work with X.400 and FTAM
  products, and migration of existing networks;
 
- Harmonization and interconnection of existing 'interim' networks;
 
- European network collaboration within RARE.
 
The organizations collaborating in NORDUNET are UNI-C in Denmark, FUNET in
Finland, SURIS on Iceland, UNINETT in Norway, and SUNET in Sweden, plus the
national UNIX network associations. NORDUNET is member of RARE. All the
nations are members of the Eureka project COSINE.
 
NORDUNET is managed by a steering committee with members from each of the
Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
 
 
Planned Nordic backbone network
-------------------------------
NORDUNET has started a project called X.EARN to provide a common Nordic
transport network for 'interim' networks (DECnet, ARPA-Internet, EARN, and
UNIX nets) as well as for OSI-services.
 
Plans are now being finalized for an inter-Nordic backbone network. The network
will begin operation in 1988.
 
The network will be based on inter-connecting the national IEEE 802.3 type
networks with multiple routers to a toplevel international IEEE 802.3 network.
 
The network will support at least the following types of services:
 
- Internet IP based services like MAIL, FTP and Telnet;
 
- DECnet Phase IV and V;
 
- X.25 based services;
 
- BITNET/EARN based on NJE/RSCS;
 
- OSI network services.
 
In the beginning a bandwidth of 64 Kbit/s will be used.
 
The network will be operated by the national organisations.
 
We would like to have this network connected to the NSFnet.
 
 
Desired services from NFSnet
----------------------------
Our main interest today are the services provided by the Arpa-Internet protocol
suite. In addition, with the approval of the site at the US end of the connec-
tion, we would like to carry our BITNET RSCS and USEnet traffic over the con-
nection using TCP/IP. The proposed connection would be used by all the Nordic
countries.
 
 
Commitments
-----------
The Nordic countries take full responsibility for all the costs involved in
this connection. We will follow the recommendations for Internet gateways
given in RFC1009 and honour the regulations of NSFnet. We commit ourselves to
migrate the connection to ISO IP when the NSF so decides.
 
Summary
-------
We ask NSF to decide on the following:
 
- approval of the connection;
 
- appointing possible sites with whom we may start discussions on the physical
  connection.
 
 
Contact information
-------------------
For further  discussion of the administrative matters you may contact:
 
Mats Brunell, NORDUNET Project manager, Phone: +46 8 7521563
 
E-mail: Internet: matsb@sics.se
 
 
For technical matters you may contact:
--------------------------------------
 
Harri Salminen  Phone: +358-0-4512632, Internet: hks@hut.fi
 
 
 
Yours Sincerely,
 
 
Peter Villemoes
 
Chairman of the NORDUNET Steering Committee
 
 
 
 
For information: The RARE Secretariat