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Growing diffusion of LANs and development of more complex computer applications is pushing requirements on network providers for a new kind of services able to offer connectivity and performance comparable to that of LANs but over a metropolitan area or better inside a geographical extension. B-ISDN is the future answer that standardization bodies have identified and PTOs chosen; but availability of B-ISDN is foreseen only for late 90s. In the meantime SMDS, elected as the first service in the context of B-ISDN, seems to be the right solution for current users' needs, especially for LAN interconnection. The European interest for the emerging SMDS service led to the institution of ESIG (European SMDS Interest Group), set up to support early implementation of SMDS in Europe and to diffuse awareness of the service; the main task of its activity is the production of agreed european SMDS specification, in the framework of relevant international standards. In order to provide SMDS early, evolutionary towards B-ISDN but realizable solutions have to be used: SIP has identified MANs as technology to offer an SMDS-like service in the near and medium term, and to gather traffic for future B-ISDN in the long term. In this view SIP is experimenting Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) on field, together with other technology like star-based geographical networks.