The national research and education networks (NRENs) of Europe and China have jointly funded, dedicated point to point connectivity via direct terrestrial fibre optic cables since 2007. This links the pan-European GÉANT network and the Chinese networks CERNET and CSTNET enabling scientific and academic collaborations between their research and education communities.

The current contract for EU/China connectivity provides 10 Gbps capacity up to December 2014 through a project called ORIENTplus which is funded by the NRENs, the European Commission's FP7 programme and the Chinese government. Previous connectivity contracts and their funding have alternated between

the European and Chinese sides. This time the EU and Chinese project partners are tendering together and wish to explore options to maintain or increase the capacity of the direct connectivity between them including multi- year leases or IRUs with potential terms of up to 20 years and potential bandwidth increases of up to 100Gbps during the contract period. The contracting authority is interested in exploring contractual and financing options during the dialogue process.

Upon any successful award(s) by DANTE under this procurement exercise, where it has been made clear in the final tender documentation alternate contract forms may be defined including possible novation to Chinese project partner(s).