Morocco, Tunisia Join Research Net

CAMBRIDGE, U.K. -- DANTE "Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe" is pleased to announce two further new circuits in the EUMEDCONNECT network. The two circuits will run from Rabat, Morocco and Tunis, Tunisia, to Catania, Italy at 34 Mbps and 45 Mbps speeds respectively.

The new circuits will connect the countries' National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) - Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST) for Morocco and Réseau Fédéré de la Recherche (RFR), managed by the Secretary of State for Scientific Research and Technology, for Tunisia - to the EUMEDCONNECT Mediterranean network and to the multi-gigabit GÉANT pan-European research and education network. For the first time, researchers in Morocco and Tunisia will have dedicated connectivity to research centres and institutions in other Mediterranean countries, across Europe, and around the world.

The contracts for the links from Morocco and Tunisia to Italy were awarded to TI Sparkle following a public tender. The new circuits bring to 7 the number of Mediterranean Partners now connected: Algeria's 45 Mbps connection was announced last month and Cyprus, Israel, Malta and Turkey are already connected via GÉANT.

The two new circuits land in Catania, where a EUMEDCONNECT PoP (point ofpresence) has been established, to serve as a hub for traffic on the emerging EUMEDCONNECT regional network. TI Sparkle is also providing EUMEDCONNECT with additional capacity to carry traffic between Catania and the GÉANT PoP in Milan.

"The EUMEDCONNECT network provides the opportunity for researchers in Morocco to participate much more actively with their counterparts in the Mediterranean, and around Europe", said Mr Redouane Merrouch of CNRST."This achievement is going to really make a difference for us."

Mme Malika Zenati of RFR also warmly welcomed the new circuits, adding, "The EUMEDCONNECT initiative is providing a real boost to Tunisia's research and education sector. Providing researchers with state-of-the-art facilities helps to level the playing field for them with respect to the global research race."

Enzo Valente, General Manager of GARR, the Italian NREN, said, "The EUMEDCONNECT network is now becoming established, and the Catania hub provides a key interconnection point between the EUMEDCONNECT and GÉANT networks. I hope that in the future this will become an important gateway for high volumes of traffic to flow between Europe and the Mediterranean as researchers in both regions collaborate in their work."

Dante