CANARIE Partners With NORDUnet and NSF To Build IceLink

The international lens has sharpened more recently on the North as a source of untapped natural wealth in a world marked by growing resource scarcity, and as a red flag heralding the negative impacts of global warming. Over the past year or so, Canadians and other nations have stepped up research and diplomatic efforts to reinforce recognition of their northern sovereignty in response to the increasing strategic importance of the polar regions – and as a result of growing competition between northern jurisdictions anxious to stake their claim.

It’s not all competition, though.  The IceLink Project, a new communications initiative that was announced this week, demonstrates what can be achieved through international cooperation to draw northern regions more closely into the global community.  IceLink, which will establish a high-capacity circuit through the polar regions of Iceland and Greenland to link the US, Canada and five Nordic countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland) is the brainchild of a partnership between NORDUnet (a joint collaboration by the five Nordic National Research and Education Networks), CANARIE (Canada's Advanced Research and Innovation Network) and the NSF GLORIAD Project.  Each of these institutions maintain high-speed networks for use by research and academic communities: CANARIE, for example, provides an ultra fast network that is “hundreds of times faster than the internet” for the rapid transfer of scientific data which is used by close to 40,000 researchers in 200 Canadian universities, and which links to many international networks.

By linking the CANARIE network with NORDUnet and NSF GLORIAD (scientific network linking the US, China, Korea, Canada, and the Netherlands), IceLink will not only provide Iceland with a high capacity network connection (Greenland and The Farao Island to be connected in the future), but also offer CANARIE  a redundant path to Europe. Currently, CANARIE’s only link to Europe is provided via a connection in New York, however, the IceLink project will lay a new submarine cable that traverses Greenland and connects in Reykjavik, Iceland. According to CANARIE Chief Technology Officer, Éric Bernier, "CANARIE has always wanted a direct link to Europe and IceLink will provide us with a high-capacity, undersea international connection that, for the first time, will land on Canadian soil.”

Page: 1          1   |  2   |  Next Page