015.10.1 Japan-Wide by Jun Murai Japan(WIDE) The Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) project was initiated in July 1987 by a group of researchers led by Professor Jun Murai. The project was designed to provide a testbed for the development of large-scale distributed systems technologies, and was initially constructed by interconnecting several campus networks. The WIDE Internet has since provided a basis for Japanese computer science researchers to gain practical experience in advanced networking. The WIDE project operates as a non-government network with funding support from about 25 private companies. The WIDE project sponsors a consortium to study various computer issues including protocols, operating systems, computer security, ISDN technologies, home computing, mobile computing, satellite data communications, distributed applications and internationalization of computer software. Their research results are annually published by the project and the resulted software are also distributed. The WIDE Internet is composed of a variety of links, including voice grade leased lines, 64Kbps and 192Kbps digital leased lines, and ISDN. Currently, 52 user organizations, including universities and private companies are connected to six operation centers through 64Kbps to 192Kbps leased lines. The backbone also passing a traffic of other research networks such as JUNET (Japan University Network) or JAIN (Japan Academic Inter-university Network) which does not have a long haul nation-wide connectivity. The WIDE project has been providing connectivity to other networks, such as the University of Tokyo International Science Network(TISN), NACSIS Science Information Network(SINET), and BITNET-JAPAN. The WIDE Internet supports TCP/IP as the basic protocol. WIDE operates in conjunction with the Pacific Area Computer Communication (PACCOM) project to provide international inks for Japanese researchers using 192Kbps under-sea cable via University of Hawaii to NASA Ames, FIX-WEST. The actual location of WIDE internet backbone nodes (WNOCs) are Sendai, Fujisawa, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Fukuoka, and the backbone is formed by connecting these WNOCs via 64Kbps lines (192Kbps between Tokyo and Fujisawa), which is backuped by the ISDN technology developed by WIDE project itself. WIDE Project contact: c/o Prof. Jun Murai KEIO University, 5322 Endo, Fujisawa, 252 Japan. Email: jun@wide.ad.jp Telephone: +81-466-47-5111 x3330