Polish scientific broadband network: POL34

The modern computer and networking infrastructure for science in Poland consists of 20 MANs and 5 high power computer centres. It requires an appropriate country backbone network. POL34 is the ATM Polish countrywide academic network, based on the SDH 34 Mbps trunks. The goal of the POL34 initiative is to give new opportunities for development of science-oriented applications: interconnecting library servers, an access to databases and countrywide licence servers, and also creating a new class of services offered to science based on multimedia and metacomputing applications. This activity is in accordance with the concept of Internet2, and in fact can be considered as its Polish version. The paper describes the current state of POL34 development, its activity within the Polish academic and scientific community and plans for the future.