rencing sites, 650 computer workstations, and more than 2,500 users use the system. With the advent of the distance learning curricula, national achievement test scores improved steadily throughout the borough. DEUTSCHES FORSCHUNGSNETZ: RESEARCH & EDUCATION The Deutsches Forschungsnetz (DFN), in Germany, is a national communications network for institutions of public and private research groups, higher learning, and government facilities. The DFN broadband research network fosters joint research between institutions, distance learning and virtual university programs, communications between staff and associates, and data transmission. In the late 1990s, the DFN launched the Gigabit-Wissenschaftsnetz (G-WiN), a gigabit pure IP network, to support R&D and the internal and external communications of its members. Early pilots resulted in the following findings: The network data annual growth rate was 2.2 percent and therefore, traffic would grow by a factor of 50 within five years. Multimedia, videoconferencing, and supercomputing were spiking network traffic volume. International traffic was growing at an exponential rate. Demand for quality of service and services integration was growing. These findings prompted organizers to bridge the G-Win research network with the US Internet2 initiative, which, in turn, added another 100 universities and research facilities to its reach. DFN needed the ability to manage these complex, distant connections and provide bridging for its own growing number of collaborative research projects. With more than 550 member facilities and more than 10,000 network devices, DFN needed an intelligent gatekeeper that could track and supervise which entities received access to specific services, and when. DFN chose the RADVISION Enhanced Communication Server (ECS) because it Case Profiles could provide videoconferencing services for up to 400 simultaneous participants, manage more than 12,000 devices on the network and hierarchically manage multiple communication servers. Another issue was allo