Present:

Apologies:

1. New members

There were three new members of the group: Cumbria & North Lancashire MAN (C&NL MAN), Northern Ireland MAN (NI MAN) and the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). Barry Forde (C&NL MAN) and Fred McBride (NI MAN) were welcomed to their first meeting of the Group.

2. Notes of previous meeting

There were no corrections to the notes of the previous meeting

3. Matters Arising

Dave Vinograd reported that a lawyer had not been arranged to review the contracts on behalf of all UK MANs as the draft contract was not yet available.

There had been one meeting of the subgroup to work on the Heads of Agreement, but the output had not yet been circulated by UKERNA. A second meeting was scheduled for 12 May.

UKERNA was arranging a meeting on 2 June to for all MANs to present the Heads of Agreement. This will be followed by meetings between UKERNA and individual MANs between June and September. It was unlikely to be appropriate to involve a lawyer until a draft of the actual contract had been produced. Dave Vinograd will follow this up with UKERNA

Action: Dave Vinograd

Ed Carter reported that YHMAN and their lawyers had been commissioned to produce a report for the JISC on the legal and structural requirements for MANs. He would circulate it to the Group, subject to JISC approval.

Mick Kahn had provided a list of formal contacts to UKERNA.

Tim Kidd had collected information on ticketing systems.

The DTI and Oftel had postponed their meeting with the Subgroup, so there had been no progress on licensing.

Mick Kahn reported that the Subgroup meeting with the People’s Network Team would be taking place on 30 May.

4. SuperJANET4

The decision on the backbone supplier had been made and an announcement was expected the next week.

The issue of how SuperJANET4 would be delivered across the MANs was discussed. Funding would be available for enhancement of MANs. The SuperJANET4 Advisory panel had recommended against a bidding process, but a suitable formula had not been agreed yet. There would be some funding fore resilience within MANs.

There was a mismatch between the current HEI "allocation" and the bandwidth between MANs and SuperJANET. It would be necessary for the former to be increase (and be funded) in order to get best value out of SuperJANET4. It was agreed to write to the JISC on this matter.

Action: Dave Vinograd, Mick Kahn

The was a discussion on the implications of the proposed development network and the implication for the MANs in delivering this service to HEIs, but no concrete information was available. There were particular needs for Computer Science research, but this would only apply to a small number of institutions.

5. JISC Working Party

Mike Tedd’s paper was discussed. It was agreed that it would be useful to produce a list of issues that MANs needed to address that would evolve with experience. Linda McCormick will produce the initial document based on Mike Tedd’s document (subject to his approval). Mick Kahn will then maintain it on the web.

Action: Linda McCormick, Mick Kahn

6. News from MANs

EastNet is in the process of an EC restricted procurement for the infrastructure, which is being run by UKERNA. They will be an RDN.

NorMAN is in the final stages of procurement for resilience. They are discussing adding FE and had a study contract to look at connecting all schools in the region.

AbMAN plans at total re-procurement in 2002.

C&NL MAN has orders out for fibre and microwave links, to be up and running by the end of June. They have immediate plans to connect 120 Schools and eventually all 1,100 schools. They aim to keep the recurrent costs below £790 per school.

North Wales MAN is working on its procurement.

ClydeNet are considering setting up a company.

EaStMAN are thinking about re-procurement.

YHMAN is talking to LEAs and is to be the JISC FE Regional Support Centre for the region. A 155Mbps link from Telehouse to Leeds and on to NorMAN will provide additional bandwidth to SuperJANET.

FatMAN are linking Dundee schools via the LEA and also talking to FE Colleges in Fife.

Northern Ireland are in their first phase of connecting the 17 FE Colleges and have established a Policy Working Group of the two Universities and three FE College representatives. The second phase will be a regional network and the third phase will include commercial enterprises. The network expects to connect to JANET, HEANET and a commercial ISP.

NetNorthWest is connecting FE and has appointed a Business Development Manager.

GMING is running Gigabit ether on its own fibre and rethinking the SDH network in the light of the 3Com changes.

EMMAN also has a 3Com problem and is working with an LEA Broadband consortium. The various organisations interested in the JISC RSC have come together under the MAN. The RDA has asked the MAN to make a bid for funds.

MidMAN expect their second connection to SuperJANET to be operational soon and have a connection to a commercial ISP. They are working with public libraries. They now have a half time co-ordinator.

The South Wales MAN now funds an executive office one day a week from subscriptions. Funding has been agreed for a link to Aberystwyth. They were adding Cisco courseware to their server and this could possibly evolve to a national service.

The Kentish MAN would have its core operational by the end of June and offering a service by October.

BEWMAN had agreed to form a company and also planned to join with SWAN so that there was a single MAN in the region.

London Metropolitan Network was starting re-procurement, using the SuperJANET4 OR as a basis.

7. Any other business

Linda McCormick gave a progress report on Digital Scotland, which aimed to have a joint procurement, possibly covering the whole public sector.

Dave Vinograd reported on two coming events; an Internet 2 open day in June and a conference on networking halls of residence.

The Group noted that there was considerable confusion about UfI and its relationship to JANET

Some concern was raised as to whether the most cost effective connection method was being used for FE Colleges, though it was recognised that UKERNA was working to a tight timetable.

8. Dates of Future meetings

The next meeting of the Group will be held on Tuesday 4 July 2000 in London. The main items will be SuperJANET4 and contracts.

The following meetings will be held on Tuesday 10 October 2000 and Tuesday 6 February 2001.