HEAnet (Higher Education Authority network) has upgraded its broadband ultra high-speed fibre broadband to Universities and Institutes of Technologies across Ireland.
Over the past three years, €5 million has been invested by the Department of Education and Skills through the Higher Education Authority (HEA) into Ireland’s newly upgraded national education and research network.
The new high speed broadband has a capacity of 100 gigabytes-per-second (Gbps), meaning it takes only a second to download 100,000 eBooks or 600,000 web pages, according to Darragh Richardson, Agile Network’s Managing Director. Agile Networks are the Dublin based company providing the network design and build of the 2,500 kilometre national fibre network.
Dublin City University (DCU) was the first University to be connected to the service which is now available in 6 out of the 7 Irish Universities with plans to expand to 216 Higher Education Institutions around the country by early 2018. Through HEAnet, more than a million students, almost 89,000 teachers, researchers and support staff will be able to use the broadband network.
This new update to the national network is part of the Action Plan for Education, whose aim is that within a decade, Ireland’s education and training service will be the best in Europe.
According to Irish Tech News, speaking at the launch of the service in DCU, Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton said: “A digital revolution is taking place and we want to ensure that Ireland is well-placed to take advantage of the opportunities that arise by having high speed connectivity at all levels within our education system.”
Bruton “warmly welcomes the roll-out of the new HEAnet network”, which coincides with the start of the new academic year.
