The advent of the new generation of accelerators, LEP and HERA, requires a new quality of network for the HEP community. Plans for the very high speed wide area network in Germany are presented.
Modelled after the first pilot line, which currently connects the Ethernet LANs of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, this network includes CERN and DESY and a number of German HEP institutes and so constitutes a backbone for high speed telecommunication to be used by HEP and other scientist. We discuss the technology, architecture, protocols and operational aspects of this network.