Intune Joins Telefonica Project

DUBLIN -- Intune Networks, the Irish telecoms equipment design company, is part of a consortium of companies and universities awarded a major R&D contract under the EU 7th Framework. Intune will provide its unique technology to the program to design a future Telecoms Network for Cloud Computing. The consortium includes national telecoms operators Telefónica in Spain and PrimeTel in Cyprus. The consortium also includes Italian software company Nextworks, and the University of Essex and University Autonoma Madrid.

The consortium – led by Telefónica - will design and demonstrate a network that will allow the next generation of ICT services to be rolled out, giving increased flexibility, control and mobility to businesses and consumers alike, while significantly lowering costs. A key application is the virtualisation of the standard Personal Computer, pushing it into what is known as the Cloud. The Cloud permits each user to utilise a low cost, low power device - whilst their data and compute power sits inside the network. Widespread deployment of this type of Cloud Computing could dramatically reduce the energy bills of users and operators, while also delivering social and economic benefits to the IT industry.

The EU Programme is entitled MAINS – Metro Architectures Enabling Sub- Wavelengths. The programme is part of a larger EU Framework which will research the Network of the Future. The MAINS project will design a programmable network to demonstrate a practical way to implement cloud computing in future telecoms networks. Future IT applications can use this programming interface to program liquid bandwidth on-demand to service their requirements.

Vladimir Ivashchenko, Chief Technology Officer of PrimeTel, commented, "We are proud to engage and participate in a European research project like MAINS. As an alternative operator working in a highly competitive environment, it is of essence to us to stay in touch with the latest technological developments and be ready to offer next generation services. MAINS provides a unique opportunity to trial a cutting-edge networking technology which will help PrimeTel to stay ahead of competition in future."

Intune Networks