During this period RAL was one of the major nodes, and a network operations centre, on the national academic network (JANET). It was connected to similar nodes by the fastest communication lines of the time - initially 48 kbs, increasing through 2 Mbs in the early 1990s and eventually to 140 Mbps when a SuperJANET pilot network was installed in 1993/4.
For most this time the staff of the Joint Network Team (JNT) who supported and developed JANET were housed within the RAL Central Computing Department but their policies and activities were directed by the Computer Board. In the early 1990s the Board looked into options for setting up a new organisation, separate from RAL, to operate and develop the network on behalf of the academic and research communities. The outcome was UKERNA (UK Education and Research Network Association), a not for profit company limited by guarantee, established in 1994, to which all the JNT staff transferred.
This website is not the place for a general history of the development of JANET in this period. A large amount of such material can be found from the JNT's own Network Newsletters at the JANET archive website and information is also available from the CCD sections of the RAL Annual Reports which included sections written by the JNT. Coverage of JANET in the Central Computing Department's own newsletters, which are accessible in the Literature section, concentrated on those networking issues that would directly affect the Department's external users.
