The GARR-G backbone is based on high-bandwidth circuits up to 10 Gbps, using various technologies such as DWDM, SDH and MPLS. The meshed topology, interconnecting 45 network Points of Presence (PoP), ensures a high level of resilience and  reliability of the network; thanks also to its wide coverage of the country, it interconnects more than 400 user organizations all over the national territory.

Leveraging the high-bandwidth of user access, GARR-G provides its community of users, in addition to standard IPv4, a series of advanced network services such as IPv6, Multicast IPv4, L2 and L3 VPN, IP QoS. The GARR network also supports a variety of innovative applications, including Grids and Distributed Computing, Telemedicine, e-Learning and Multimedia, High Energy Physics, Radio astronomy, Earth Observation, Supercomputing.

GARR-X is the project for a next-generation multi-service telecommunication network for the Italian Academic and Research community. This network shall gradually replace the existing infrastructure, GARR-G.

Keeping an eye on existing experiences in Europe and North America, GARR-X therefore proposes a new model, based on ptical fibers and the direct control of lower network layers. Fiber-optics allows implementing a hybrid network model, thus combining the effectiveness of traditional IP model with the possibility to set-up dedicated communication channels between users.