Words: Yasmeen Al-Kouz
19 January 2020
The Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) and the Egyptian Universities Network (EUN) have signed an agreement during ASREN’s ninth annual conference in Abu Dhabi, under which ASREN will provide a high bandwidth link between EUN and the pan-European GÉANT network through ASREN’s Point of Presence (PoP) in London. ASREN will operate the link initially at 500 Mbps with the possibility of capacity increases in the future.
The agreement was signed by Eng. Yousef Torman, Executive Director of ASREN and Prof. Ibrahim Fathy, Director of Knowledge and Services Centre (EKSC) at the Supreme Council of Universities (SCU) on behalf of EUN.
EUN is the Egyptian National Research and Education Network (NREN), which provides internet connectivity, applications and services to the research and education (R&E) communities in Egypt. The connection will allow researchers, academics and students to get access to the global R&E network fabric, enabling them to collaborate with peers in Europe, USA, Latin America, Asia and Africa, in addition to other Arab countries.
Helga Spitaler, Senior International Relations Project Manager at GÉANT said: “EUN has been a longstanding R&E networking partner in North Africa, first in EUMEDCONNECT and subsequently in the AfricaConnect projects. GÉANT welcomes EUN’s re-connection to the global R&E network fabric as a first achievement of AfricaConnect3 which also clearly demonstrates ASREN’s leadership capabilities of delivering the project in the region.”
