LHC Communication Infrastructure: Recommendations from the working group

The LHC Working Group for Communication Infrastructure (CIWG) was established in May 1999 with members from the accelerator sector, the LHC physics experiments, the general communication services, the technical services and other LHC working groups. It has spent a year collecting user requirements and at the same time explored and evaluated possible solutions appropriate to the LHC. A number of technical recommendations were agreed, and areas where more work is required were identified. The working group also put forward proposals for organizational changes needed to allow the design project to continue and to prepare for the installation and commissioning phase of the LHC communication infrastructure. This paper reports on the work done and explains the motivation behind the recommendations.