Service Télématique et Communication
	Newsletter n°26	September 2002

Les Nouveaux Chemins de la Connaissance The New Paths of Knowledge

EDITORIAL

Dear Readers, The evolution towards “Next Generation Networks” is now in full swing all over the world; in Europe, a range of research projects are taking place in the scope of the Information Society Technologies programme of the European Commission. Our own Group is involved in three specific ones (NGN-LAB, 6NET and Eurov6), all dealing with the new “IPv6” protocol that will most probably be the building block of the next Internet revolution, including the mobile and multimedia worlds, and maybe “Home networking” as well. Most important in this context, we are just in the process of signing a cooperation agreement between the Eurov6 consortium and the IPv6 Promotion Council of Japan! And still in the same direction, we are about to launch a Belgian IPv6 Task Force that will be open to all (public and private) interested parties, and supported by key Belgian bodies; make sure to remain tuned to the New Paths of Knowledge! Of course you will also find in this Newsletter, reports on our (many) other activities… Happy reading, Paul VAN BINST

		STC to the top... of Belgium!
		Belgium culminates at 695 meters, but then you can climb some steps to reach 700!! That is the place where we gathered in July for our annual “summer fête” with members and collaborators of our Group, partners and children, and also a (larger and larger) number of previous members of the Group who are always keen to come back and maintain a warm relationship. Before the evening celebrations, there was a very healthy walk in the famous and beautiful region of “Hautes Fagnes”, a natural reserve where our bunch of about 70 friends brought only a very little perturbation…

"Tremendous" activity in NGN-LAB
	A range of devices and different types of communication infrastructures, both local and connected to public networks, have been tested in EuroDemo in the scope of the NGN-LAB project. These networks include the Internet, GSM with GPRS, WLAN and Bluetooth, and the end-user devices include multimedia PCs and Laptops, mobile phones and pocket computers.
Many typical Internet applications and services have been installed and tested, all of them running also over the new IPv6 protocol. Current experience and recent results are presented in an NGN-LAB Deliverable (D5) and in a recent STC report.

Eurov6, the European IPv6 Showcase
Eurov6 is a new project which started on July 1 under the IST programme of the European Commission, of which ULB-STC is the Coordinator; the other partners are ERICSSON (Sweden), CONSULINTEL (Spain) and TELSCOM (Switzerland).
	The objective of Eurov6 is to show the usage of IPv6 products and services and their impact to anyone at anytime; realizing this objective will involve: - bringing together vendors as sponsors to test and demonstrate their devices and systems, - showing various users applications based on IPv6 products and services, permanently at a few locations in Europe (“fixed Showcase”), which can be visited physically or accessed remotely through telematic means, - and organizing temporary demonstrations at different locations and/or significant events (concept of “nomadic Showcase”).
A major step in the very first months of the project has been to develop a cooperation agreement which is being signed between the Eurov6 consortium and the IPv6 Promotion Council of Japan, which groups more than 250 members and operates an IPv6 showcase in Tokyo and Osaka, called the “Galleria v6” (see www.v6pc.jp).
The picture shows members of the Eurov6 consortium surrounding Prof. Paul VAN BINST (ULB) and Mr. Kosuke ITO (IPv6 Promotion Council of Japan), holding the cooperation agreement.

IPv6 in EuroDemo/NGN-Lab
Marcin MICHALAK presents an internal STC seminar on « Big Networks in Small Devices », which is illustrated by running experiments and demos involving mobile communications in the EuroDemo/NGN-LAB environment.

ANT SYSTEMS
An increasingly interesting area of research in discrete optimization is focusing recently on algorithms derived from biology. This line of research assumes that some natural phenomena and mechanisms may well be used (after certain adaptation) to solve difficult mathematical problems. Those include problems of finding optimal path, scheduling, and others.  A good example of one such algorithm could be the ant algorithm, often called also Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm. ACO belongs to a larger category of algorithms called metaheuristics. Although a clear definition of metaheuristic is still debated upon, one could agree that metaheuristic is an algorithm, which based on a set of known solutions to a problem and a proper fitness function, is able to search for better solutions. The ideas for ACO have been derived from the way the colony of ants operates. Ants are quite simple organisms that do not posses precise senses. They do not see much, hear much, nor smell much.						However, when they are moving, they are leaving behind a substance called pheromone. They are also able to fairly precisely detect the pheromone left by other ants. The search for food (a crucial action for the colony survival) is done at random at first. Once some ants find some source of food, they are able to bring it back to the colony by retracing their own path—thanks to the pheromone. Other ants will detect that path, and some of them will follow it. This way soon a lot of ants will be bringing food from that particular source. Those ideas have been used to create ACO algorithm that could be used for solving optimal path problems, such as for instance well-known Traveling Salesmen Problem (TSP). Later, further research allowed adjusting also other types of discrete optimization problems to be solved by ACO. Examples include scheduling, timetabling, vehicle routing, and others. Further research is being done at the moment into possible other uses for algorithms based on ants behavior.

Democracy, Governance and ICTs
STC has been commissioned by the Brussels Region to conduct research on “Democracy, governance and ICTs”. The project is an international comparative analysis of the key issues, policies and best practices in these areas. E-government and the newly emerging e-democracy sectors are typically the preserve of a ‘technically minded’ few, in policy and decision making circles.  In order to fully address the challenges for governance created by new technologies, many more governors and policy makers need to have a better understanding of the issues, challenges and opportunities. This project seeks to address this gap and enable the Brussels Region and others, the take full advantage of the opportunities. In this light, the project aims to define the nature of the challenges presented by new technologies to governments and governors, covering the areas such as institutional reform, government activity, performance, accountability, transparency, democracy, civic engagement and more generally, political relationships. The project will then identify best practice in the government-governed relationship, from a few selected examples at local, regional and national levels, around the world.			The project also includes a more practical component, which will analyse the situation in the Brussels Region, examining the various organs of government and their strategies to deal with these issues. The project will provide a presentation of current and future opportunities in this area. The project, which has already begun, is for just under one year, and will be completed in early 2003. Bridie NATHANSON collaborates with STC on the e-Democracy Study carried out for the Brussels Region government.

Adonis
	Adonis project Steering Committee meeting took place in Brussels on 9th September 2002. It was devoted mainly to the preparation of the 2nd Review Meeting in Moscow, scheduled for 15th November.
The participants discussed the deliverables of the project, to be presented in the draft form at the Moscow meeting and to be updated and revised during the implementation of the Adonis Pilot Trial Projects. The main deliverables will be the Adonis web site with its ProjectCentre, Guidelines to the Adonis Method and the Adonis Business Plan.

Belgian Broadband Platform
The Belgian Broadband Symposium will take place on 29 November at the BBL Marnix premises. The main topic of the day is “Wireless Broadband” featuring presentations and demos. A panel concludes the day. More information can be found at http://www.broadbandplatform.be/ or you can send a mail to vandenbroucke@helios.iihe.ac.be.

MEMBERS of SERVICE TELEMATIQUE ET COMMUNICATION

Antal BULANZA, Ali HACHAMI, Agnieszka HENSOLDT, Marcin MICHALAK,  Ines MARTINEZ MORENO, Nadia PARONI, Manuela PROFILI, Krzysztof SOCHA, Clémentine VALAYER, Paul VAN BINST, Fuhua YIN. Our VUB collaborators: Alain ISAAC, Rosette VANDENBROUCKE (for all of the above, e-mail is: surname@helios.iihe.ac.be) Secretariat: Daisy PIRNAY (IIHE/VUB-ULB) (pirnay@hep.iihe.ac.be ) Other regular collaborators: Alvaro GUILLEN, Pierre MASY, Ramin NAJMABADI KIA (ARPnet), Joël CANNAU, Marie-Paule SPINETTE (ULB), Georges ROUSSEAU, Edwin TORISAEN (IIHE/ULB-VUB), Bridie NATHANSON. Contact: Service Télématique et Communication - Professor Paul VAN BINST ULB - CP230 - Boulevard du Triomphe - 1050 Brussels - Belgium Tel.: + 32 2 629 3211 or 3209 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816 Rosette VANDENBROUCKE VUB - ELEM - Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels - Belgium Tel.: + 32 2 629 3210 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816 World Wide Web Address: http://www.iihe.ac.be

ULB/ARPnet developements within Belnet

Since August 2001 a collaboration contract between STC (Service Télématique et Communication)/ARPnet and Belnet is going on in order to support some strategic developments within Belnet. Multicasting, IPv6 and GIGAnet infrastructure were the most important topics ARPnet focused on. Multicasting, setting up of an Internet-wide multicast environment. PIM-SM, MSDP and MBGP IPv6, setting up of  an International IPv6 connexion, BGPv6 Giganet, design and checking of the new high-speed Belnet infrastructure The futures activities is mainly the implementation, checking and migration preparation of this network that is probably the most advanced, in terms of bandwidth, NRN in Europe. The Migration is specially challenging since the interruption should be minimized and all the Cisco equipment is to be replaced by Juniper boxes. The basic Giganet structure offers fully redundant dual access; while one access will be used for Unicast traffic, the second one may be used for testing new features, allowing Belnet to stay on track for the future…

Training seminars for the Sales Force of DIMENSION DATA		Teleport Brussels is moving
Just after the holiday period, ULB-STC and their VUB Colleagues have organized a series of eight training seminars for the sales people of Dimension Data. The topics covered quite a range of basic and recent aspects of ICT, and will no doubt give the sales people an even better impact on their (potential) customers!		As of October 1, 2002, the new address of Teleport Brussels will be: c/o Crystal Palace, rue de la Borne/Paalstraat 14, 1080 Brussels. As Teleport Brussels is hosting the secretariat of the Belgian Broadband Platform and of the Belgian Teleworking Association, the addresses of these two organisations will change at the same time.

New from Belgian Teleworking Association
	The General Assembly of the BTA was held at the end of May, kindly hosted by Belgacom. In the formal meeting, the GA conducted its statutory business and elected new Board Members. After that, a seminar on “Current Aspects of Telework in Belgium” drew more than 60 participants, who enjoyed high-level presentations by InSites Consulting, ALCATEL, FOREM and LENTIC (University of Liège).
During the summer, BTA was very happy to welcome TELENET as new silver sponsor.In the autumn, BTA will be present in a number of seminars and conferences; check the agenda on the website: www.bta.be.