I'd like to point out that the JANET deal is (as Ahmad says) open
to students/faculty only.

But JANET is a full part of the Internet anyway
(there is no Internet. Just lots of networks, like JANET,
connected by the Internet Protocol).


I'd like to comment a little on the history of JANET,
and a connection to NHSnet. Forgive me, as this may not be the
place for my rantings.
Please son't continue to read unless you are a real networks
afficionado.

At the recent MEDNET conference, Des Cline of the NHS IMG said
that he had formerly been one of the JANET team.
From it's beginnings, JANET ran on X.25 lines, just like NHSnet,
and used proprietary protocols called the Coloured Books.
Thirteen or so years ago, as a nuclear physics student,
I remember many happy hours of "TRANSFER /CODE=FAST" and
coloured book email.
The Coloured Books were incompatible with totally anything else,
and our systems admins had to purchase them and install them
on all our machines (in those days mainly mainframes and VAXen).
Does this ring any bells with the NHSnet installation?

Worse is to come - in order to communicate with CERN in Switzerland,
the HEP commmunity had a leased line, and had to get CERN to install
the Coloured Books on their mainframes.
So we had a very 'closed' JANET, with mail relays off to BITNET.
The Internet protocols came along, and were enthusiastically
embraced by CERN and many other institutions worldwide.
Of course, JANET was cut off from these.
The first chink in the armour came when the Astronomy community
needed DECNET access to the SPANS network, and the HEP community
needed DECNET to our VAXes at CERN.
We had to bang our fists up and down on the table at meetings
to get permission to use DECNET.
I was a very happy young person the first day I ran a remote
X-windows session from Glasgow to my workstation in Geneva.
That's something you all take for granted today.

JANET originally then began to carry IP over X.25,
and the rest is history, ie. the research community got
what they wanted with open connectivity to the Internet.
Remember - if you are an ac.uk user
JANET didn't bring you the Internet. User pressure did.


Amazingly enough, there is still life in the 'old' JANET yet,
with (I think) some JNT PADs and X.25 lines operating here.

I should have spoken up at MEDNET, but I still see this centralist
philosophy operating in the NHSnet:
"We'll choose the protocols and you'll run them.
We'll negotiate deals for leased point-to-point lines and you'll use
them. Cost and incompatibility with everyone else on the planet
are unimportant as we know better".

Well, as Ahmad says, people are voting with their feet,
just as we did ten years ago in JANET.

John Hearns













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