SSE Enterprise Telecoms has won a network contract with UK education sector provider, Jisc to refresh the Janet South network as part of its programme to develop a new Janet Network access infrastructure.
The partnership will see seven BT exchanges unbundled and will use four existing Points of Presence (PoP) to provide improved connectivity to 11 universities. A pre-existing contract between the two companies has additionally been extended, developing the connectivity framework required to improve the support for education and research across the UK, and access to the global research and education network.
SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ core fibre network will be used by Jisc’s UK ‘backbone network’ for a further nine years until 2028, enabling data-intensive research centres including The Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and Imperial College London, access to significant bandwidth and speeds of up to 100Gb/s.
Colin Sempill, managing director at SSE Enterprise Telecoms said: ‘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.’
Jeremy Sharp, Janet infrastructure director, added: ‘The relationship between Jisc and SSE Enterprise Telecoms originated in the early 2000s and, nearly 20 years later, the relationship continues to grow from strength-to-strength. A substantial level of trust has built up between our two companies and these new network contracts show our continued commitment to further develop this relationship.’
The Jisc Janet network has also been involved with the creation of a national research facility to support UK researchers in creating communications networks for the future fibre links, the National Dark Fibre Facility (NDFF).