Jisc has extended its contract with SSE Enterprise Telecoms to refresh the Janet South digital network for higher education and research.
The non-profit digital solutions provider for the academic sector and the telecoms firm have agreed on a seven-year deal, in which the company’s core fibre network will be utilised by Jisc’s UK backbone network for a further nine years until 2028. This will provide research centres with bandwidth of up to 100Gbps.
SSE said the arrangement will involve unbundling seven BT exchanges and utilising four existing points of presence to improve the connectivity of 11 universities. These include Southampton and Surrey and 80 local colleges between Aldershot and Bournemouth.
Research centres expected to benefit include the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Imperial College London.
Vital connectivity
Colin Sempill, managing director at SSE Enterprise Telecoms, said: “Through utilising our expansive network and industry expertise, Jisc has been able to provide vital connectivity to some of the UK’s most critical education and research facilities. Thanks to our high capacity, low latency services these institutions can collaborate across the UK and the globe.
“We’re very excited to announce the launch of the Janet South Network partnership and further extension of the UK backbone network, which will keep vital institutions producing ground breaking research and development for years to come, particularly as 5G and internet enabled devices become more mainstream.
Jisc has been working with the company since the early 2000s.
Image by felixtriller, CC BY 2.0 through flickr
