ATTENTION: This is a surprise for Daniel (we've made sure he won't see this), so please don't respond to the whole list and spoil it!!! Hi Everybody, In 1992, on this very day (920401), the RIPE NCC started operations with 1 employee: Daniel Karrenberg. Today we are a staff of 12, and ready to celebrate our *** Quinquennium *** That's right folks! We are happy and running after all this time and think it's time for a toast. To this end we are planning to have a big bash at the 24th RIPE meeting in Berlin later this month. Of course we didn't start our preparations yesterday (that was a Sunday, after all), but have been busy for quite some time. Well, to be honest, we don't get to celebrate in the place of our choice. We of course tried to arrange for a dinner in the * Palast der Republik * but they wouldn't renovate in time for us. They have a lot of stories about how time consuming it is to remove asbestos, etc.. In spite of the numerous financial incentives offered by our generous sponsors, they wouldn't get it ready in time for our meeting. Hard to imagine. Anyway, we had to settle for the FERNSEHTURN AM ALEXANDERPLATZ (a.k.a. St. ULBRICHT) This location has the following advantages: 1. Because this is the TV tower, we will have high speed connections both locally and to the outside world (see below). This means that we can all bring laptops and don't have to be bothered with talking to one other during the dinner. This has often been complained about in the past. 2. The price is right. That's not entirely true. The dinner will cost 1000 ECUs per person. But thanks to our incredibly generous sponsor, namely the: Federation Internationale Vegetarienne Europeenne We will feast for free! Pick up your tickets when you arrive at the meeting and give 'em five, folks! So from the staff of the RIPE NCC, we hope to see you there! Chair, Quinquennial Committee ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Connectivity details: The location on the TV tower will enable us to have excellent networking connectivity. We will have an OC-480 (24.889 Gbit/s) optical MASER link to the Hyper-WIN network sponsored by the "Bundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie" commonly called Zukunftsministerium (Future Ministry). This link will have a 64kbit/s X.25 channel for backwards compatibility reasons. Just in case the MASERs get overloaded by all the dinnertime WEB surfing we will have an OC-3 (155.520 Mbit/s) laser backup directly to The Center of the Internet in Stockholm via a chain of mirrors and laser repeaters placed on (soon to be obsolete) microwave towers. The 7993-type routers needed for interfacing between the OC-480 link, the laptop network, as well as the virtual reality gear for the dinner show, will be sponsored by FRISCO systems Europe. In the unlikely event of all this high technology failing we will have an HF radio link sponsored by Iputs BA which uses the newest 'independent side bands' modulation technology to achieve a stunning 997 kbit/s data rate using only 4.49 kHz of HF spectrum. Please keep quiet about this last backup method as Iputs usually does not have time to inform local authorities about their inventive use of the radio spectrum.