Present:

Apologies were received from:

1. Notes of previous meeting

The notes of the meeting held on 16 April 2002 at the University of Ulster were accepted as an accurate record of the meeting

2. Matters arising

2.1 Equipment Insurance

Phil Brady had carried out an email survey and in general the equipment located at sites to deliver the MAN service was covered by the institutions policy. For PoPs, MANs usually insured the equipment. Mick Kahn reported that there may be some problem with including equipment not owned by the institution on their policy. YHMAN had written a requirement for this in the local Network Services Agreement.

2.2 GRID

Scott Currie had circulated a report on the GRID meeting and highlighted MAN issues, which were security (including bypassing of firewalls), QoS and multicast.

It was agreed that the GRID Network Team should be invited to a future meeting and that Scott Currie should continue to liaise with GRID activities.

Action: Scott Currie

2.3 Multicast

Mick Kahn reported that there were no specific requirements for multicast in the next JISC/UKERNA SLA and that UKERNA were aware of the operational limitations. The Group will keep a watching brief on developments.

UKERNA is running a multicast workshop on 10 July 2002 and the attendees will report back.

Action: David Steadham and John Linn

2.4 QoS pilot

John Linn reported on the UKERNA QoS workshop. There were 11 proposed projects involving 9 MANs. Presentations from the workshop are available at http://www.ja.net/development/qos/qos_dev.html.

2.5 Local fibre contract

Kit Powell had been working on a contract for locally provided connections and would circulate a draft to the Group for comments.


Action: Kit Powell.

2.6 JANET Regional User Groups

Kit Powell reported on discussions with Ian Campbell, chair of SWJRUG and JNUG about the relationship of MAN user groups to the JANET RUGs. It was noted that they were attended by different types of people.

2.7 Data protection

Scott Currie reported that the data protection issues relating to their contract with Thus had been resolved.

3. Licensing

Chris Cheney had circulated details of the document from Oftel (The general conditions of entitlement) which is available at http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/licensing/2002/enti0502.htm. Other related information is provided on http://www/communicationsbill.gov.uk. He reported that, if implemented, this will mean that MANs will effectively have a free hand and that there would be no "education licence". He will write a brief response in favour, which will be circulated to the Group for comment.

Action: Chris Cheney

4. Transition Plans

Generally agreement and implementation of the transition plans were going well, though a number of issues were raised for discussion with UKERNA later in the meeting.

5. UKERNA business

5.1 Strategic issues

Robin Arak made a presentation on the UKERNA strategic drivers and the implications for RNOs. Copies of the slides will be circulated to the Group.

5.2 FE charging model

Before covering FE issues, Bob Day reported on the progress with interconnection between JANET and schools networks. In England it was now agreed that JANET should provide interconnection between the Regional Broadband consortia (and by implication peering). RBCs will connect to C-PoPs or MAN entry points. Scotland were interested in JANET providing interconnection and internet transit for schools. In Wales, the Lifelong Learning Network for Wales will provide interconnection and transition.

Bob Day described a new model for provision of additional bandwidth to FE Colleges. He also covered the case where a higher bandwidth circuit is more cost effective than a standard 2Mbps circuit. The FEC would pay the additional access costs and a MAN transit charge, based on an average charge across MANs. The funding allocation increase to MANs for 4Mbps had already been specified and a similar formula will be used for 10Mbps. It was hoped that the revised model will apply from 1 August 2002. Copies of Bob Day’s slides will be circulated to the Group.

A number of MANs had been concerned that MAN backbone upgrades would be needed to provide additional FE bandwidth. The Group were happy that the proposal would address these concerns. It was noted that MANs were not obliged to provide additional bandwidth if it was not cost effective to do so.

UKERNA confirmed that it would treat the highest bandwidth connection as the nominated connection and that other connections were a matter for RNOs.

In the longer term the LSC will review the bandwidth provided, but their priority is to connect more colleges at present.

5.3 Sponsored connections

Bob Day reported that there had not been much progress on reviewing the sponsored connection model due to other priorities. UKERNA was still thinking of a scheme where MANs purchased transit capacity (over JANET and to the Internet) for sponsored connections. It would be difficult to measure or police this arrangement and there was no desire for a large scale monitoring project. With this model, MANs would be allowed to offer sponsored connections, but primary connections would still be able to offer sponsored connections.

The current charges will apply to at least 31 March 2003 and UKERNA will give reasonable notice of changes to the model or the charges. UKERNA will provide information to MANs on the sponsored connections connected through it.

5.4 Contract review

There was a formal requirement for a review of the staff payments by August 2002, but it was agreed that this would be better postponed to September 2002. UKERNA also recognised the need to review the equipment maintenance. Ian Griffiths will co-ordinate information from the MANs.

Action: Ian Griffiths

UKERNA will organise a workshop in the last week of September for the contract review and a discussion on longer term technology development (e.g. Ipv6, QoS and multicast).

The possibility of redistribution of funding between equipment and telecommunications was discussed. Bob Day indicated explained that the replacement funding was not intended to build up the full replacement cost of the equipment and that telecommunications funding could only be used for equipment maintenance if the full equipment money had been spent in that year and a good case was made. UKERNA had already agreed in a couple of cases.

UKERNA recognised that provision for full equipment replacement and telecommunications re-procurement needed to be made. This would be part of a lager review of MAN funding mechanisms.

John Littledale said that the transition funding must be claimed within the next fortnight.

UKERNA were requested to publish the details of the JANET Support Desk arrangements.

There was some confusion as to the documentation required to support claims for telecommunications funding. A requirement for actual invoices caused serious cash flow problems for some MANs. John Littledale will clarify the requirement.

6. News from MANs

There was not enough time at the meeting to cover this item, but the following reports have been received by email.

Our 6 year old HEI-only SWMAN1 network is due to be switched off on 31 JUL 02. It has been remarkably reliable. The replacement HEI+FEC SWMAN2 network is being rolled out to plan. We experienced a spot of bother in getting money from the Welsh Funding Council to pay for the recurrent costs of the SWMAN2 access links to our FECs. This has now been resolved with the help of UKERNA for which we are most grateful.

We have had problems on the (wireless) link to Aberystwyth which caused our supplier to be in breach of its SLA: discussions on a remedy are taking place. Our first RPAN Review has taken place and was relatively painless. The Lifelong Learning Network to link Welsh LEAs, which we have procured on behalf of the Welsh Assembly, is being brought into service with a completion deadline of 1 AUG 02.

• http://perth.Netsight.ja.net operational
• http://www.uhi.net.uk operational
• Transition Plan signed off and invoiced for
• SFC-funded Network Upgrade completed and invoiced for
• Still keen to take away 'any old iron! any old iron!' in the C7200/C7500 and LS1010 department as we will stay with that technology for the next few years at least

Progress with the North Wales MAN installation has been very disappointing. We had agreement on 2nd May with Cable and Wireless that the few remaining items required for phase one would be completed by 20 May and that we would also have full details of phase 2 by that date. In the event neither happened and the project manager has been unavailable since. Following vigorous protests to senior management in C&W we have now been allocated a new project manager and our first meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, but we acknowledge that he will have a steep learning curve.

The transition plan is fully agreed with UKERNA and a draft site details document is being checked by an FE partner.

Phase 3 now implemented, which creates the redundant ATM core network. Discretionary funds from UKERNA agreed and will be implemented, in the majority, to increase our 'out of band' power management to improve resilience at some key points. NTI bid approved in East Kent, which will probably have a significant affect on the size and complexity of the MAN. This is seen as a major project which will take advantage of the high speed infrastructure provided by the MAN.

Circuits to provide resilient connection to LMN for 22 HEIs. Mahmood Javaid has recently started as a full time Business Development Manager. LMN now plans to move to being an RPAN in January 2003 and it will be operated by a commercial provider. An EU procurement will be launched in July 2002.

The date of the next meeting will be confirmed by email. Wednesday 23 October in London was proposed, so as to follow the next UCNG meeting. Mick Kahn proposed that Business Development Managers were invited to join the Group at the next meeting.

Those who attended reported on the UK MAN Chairs group meeting. It will meet again immediately before the Strategy Networkshop.