Researchers rejoice! Internet speeds at state universities are set to take a major leap forward with eight schools gaining access to the Kentucky Regional Optical Network.
Senior Vice Provost for University of Kentucky Analytics and Technologies Vince Kellen says the jump in speed is no small improvement.
"This helps Kentucky join the rest of the big boys in the higher ed. research community," he says. "So, UK joins the 100 gig club, which is kind of a very elite club of universities."
UK joined forces with the Council on Postsecondary Education to increase state schools’ access to something called Internet2, a nonprofit computer networking consortium for research, education, industry, and government entities. Kellen reports the speed will increase by a factor of ten, allowing the research departments to move space-hogging files in a fraction of the time, "things like genomics data and very large image data that comes from medical applications, or very large simulation data for astronomy."
The 100 gigabit connection is already available at UK, but other schools will upgrade as their staff and resources allow. The council supplied $1 million to fund the improvements while UK spent $650,000 for new equipment while taking on management duties for the upgrade.
