Finnish research network Funet upgraded to 2.5-gigabit capacity

Espoo 25 March 2001 CSC, the Finnish center for high-performance computing and networking, has increased the speed of the Funet (Finnish University and Research Network) backbone network to 2.5 Gbps. This increases the network's capacity over 16-fold and makes Funet one of the world's most powerful data network providers to the field of research and academic education. Other academic networks with the same operational speed include Abilene of the American Internet2, Canadian CA*net3, and the Dutch Surfnet.

The new network is an infrastructure for new academic services such as the virtual university, distance education, and videoconferences. As an example, the transfer rate of 2.5 Gbps enables a book of over 100,000 pages to be transmitted in just one second.

Finland is the first Nordic country and one of the leading European countries implementing the eEurope 2002 Action Plan of the European Commission. The target of the plan is to increase the capacity of research networks in Member States to 2.5 Gbps by the end of 2001.

The core of the new network is build on Juniper routers and the links are based on DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology delivered by Sonera Corporation.

Funet's network nodes, so-called SuperPoPs, are located at CSC, the University of Helsinki, Tampere Institute of Technology, Abo Akademi University, the University of Oulu, and the University of Kuopio. The universities and polytechnics located in other cities in Finland will be linked the backbone network through a set of access networks, which will be operated with 155 Mbps connections to start with. The polytechnics will receive their new interface connections by the summer.

"Also the new Funet SuperPoPs will be located on the campuses. This helps to advance the role of universities in the development of local data communication infrastructure," says Project Manager, Klaus Lindberg from CSC.

Over the past few years, the amount of data transferred through Funet has increased by over 100 percent per year. The extensive growth in traffic is due the fact that the research community and students have become increasingly active network users and to Funet's proactive implementation of new network services and technologies.

"The new network provides better chances for distant learning, etc. For example, a clearly larger amount of high-quality video material can be transmitted over the network to several different academic locations simultaneously," says Juha Oinonen, Development Manager at CSC.

In 1971, the first network connections between Finnish universities were operated at 2.4 kbps. It means that the speed of academic connections has increased by a factor of one million over the past 30 years. Added the the renewed network, CSC also assumes 24-hour maintenance responsibility for the most important components of the network.

CSC - Scientific Computing Ltd., owned by the Finnish Ministry of Education, maintains the academic Funet network. Funet communication links provide research workers with Finland's widest selection of scientific software and databases and Finland's most powerful supercomputing environment.

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