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31.7.2010 : 5:50

Future Internet experimentation in Sweden

The national programme on FI is managed by the the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, VINNOVA. This is a Research & Development programme for the IT and Telecom industry in Sweden within mobility, mobile communication and broadband, in collaboration with the public sector. The programme started in 2006 and ends in 2010. It has initiated more than 50 R&D and demonstration projects with a total budget of approx 24 MEUR. More than 40 research groups and more than 40 companies participate. Research is ongoing at several Swedish Uuniversities and R&D institutes, in several projects. Some examples are given below.

The SICS Center for Networked Systems

The SICS Center for Networked Systems (CNS) is a joint industry - academia research center. The center is funded by VINNOVA, SSF, and KK-Stiftelsen through the programme Institute Excellence Centres. Researchers at the center perform leading edge research on networked systems in close collaboration with industry and the public sector. Results are commercially exploited by the partners and also communicated to the public. Their research vision is of a secure and reliable Internet infrastructure which provides a predictable service and enables robust applications on heterogeneous networks that are easier to manage. Like FIRE, they believe that the current Internet technology has fundamental deficiencies making reliable operation of critical applications difficult. To address these deficiencies, the whole networked system, comprising the systems view from user expectations to the underlying network technology, needs to be considered. Examples of networked systems are mobile telecommunication systems, factory automation systems and banking systems.

Acreo National Testbed (ANT)
The Acreo National Testbed is a real access network delivering IPTV and Internet to approximately 60 households in the City of Hudiksvall. The ANT is also a meeting place for a wide spectrum of regional, national and international institutions and companies working with research and commercialization of products and services for broadband networks. The ANT includes different kinds of testbed work that can be roughly divided into the following areas:

  • Fixed access: The broadband access part of ANT contains a test pilot population of around 60 people living in Hudiksvall who are connected to Acreo equipment located in the network of the local municipal network. The test pilots have a high speed broadband connection (10 or 100 Mbit/s symmetrical) and get Internet and TV and in some cases telephony over this connection. The test pilots are subject to test of equipment and services.
  • Mobile access: A 3G testbed has been built out containing 20 test pilots in scarcely populated areas outside of Hudiksvall. Some test pilots have never had broadband access before, and through traffic measurements and interviews it is expected to get an indication of how such a fixed-wireless connection impacts people’s lives and behaviour. The services that will tested are compressed IPTV and IP-based telephony.
  • Behaviour: The behaviour testbed includes traffic measurements of almost 2000 households in Hudiksvall and in a municipality network in southern Sweden. These measurements allow to investigate people’s internet traffic patterns in terms of popular applications, peak traffic hours etc. Other ways of monitoring test pilot behaviour are through personal interviews and through interactive, TV-based questionnaires.
  • Connectivity: Acreo has many partners - primarily around Stockholm and Kista, in Hudiksvall and at Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall - with whom to exchange contents. Typically Acreo partners get access to their IPTV platform. This requires operating a geographically wide network including switches, routers and optical transmission equipment.

The ANT is funded by a combination of EUs regional funds and national Swedish funds.

Acreo GMPLS Testbed

The Acreo GMPLS Testbed is a laboratory network that consists in a combination of real and emulated network elements using three data plane switching technologies:

  • IP/MPLS
  • Ethernet 802.1Q
  • Optical cross-connects and ROADMs

Testbed Future Internet

The project aims at complementing the existing Testbed activities to create an attractive meeting point for developers of digital services. The project is carried out by Acreo and SICS jointly.