Brussels, 05/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Commission decided, this Thursday, to sign a EUR 80 million contract with the consortium of the GEANT project, so as to contribute to the strengthening of the scientific research network running through the Internet. Technically, GEANT is aimed at extending to geographical coverage of the Europe's Internet backbone from 24 to 30 countries and increase its capacity by a factor of 16 - by increasing it to 2.5 gigabits/second - compared to the 155 M/bit that was offered by the previous technology. All the conditions are there for the network to enter into service in 2001. The aim is to widen the fields of scientific disciplines that may use this network and ensure the emergence of new applications in the world of research. Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, head of Information society, announced that this decision "is a clear demonstration that implementation of e-Europe is running to schedule". A Commission Communiqué indicates that GEANT represents "an important move in Europe's evolution towards Internet II". Last June the "Research" Council underlined the importance of the project. It invited the Commission to present initiatives that would increase the European research networks to a capacity of 100Gbits, which means multiplying its capacity by 40. The extension of these broadband connections from Europe's to backbones in the United States and Asia is foreseen at a future stage.