News for and about the Internet2 community

["Greg Wood" <>]

Contacts:
Greg Wood
Internet2

+1-202-331-5360

John Bolland
HEAnet

+353-1-6623412

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern Announces Dramatic Leap in Irish-US
Research Connectivity

DUBLIN, Ireland-December 12, 2000-At a function today in the Guinness
Storehouse honouring the visit of US President Bill Clinton, the Irish Prime
Minister Bertie Ahern, announced an initiative that will see Ireland’s
Internet research links to the US increase more than 20 fold over the next
eighteen months, lifting Ireland to the leading edge of international
Internet connectivity, and allowing Irish researchers to participate in real
time, state of the art research with their American colleagues.

As a result of this initiative Ireland’s Internet research connectivity to
the US will increase twenty fold by 2002, and will link education and
research organisations in Ireland to more than 180 leading universities in
the US involved in the Internet2(R) and Next Generation Internet
initiatives. This connectivity provides infrastructure support for the £1.95
billion in funding for education and research initiatives announced by the
Irish government under the National Development Plan 2000-2006.

HEAnet, Ireland’s national education and research network provider, will
undertake work on this initiative in Ireland, with assistance from the
Minister for Education and Science, the Minister for Public Enterprise, the
Higher Education Authority and the Information Society Fund.

In supporting the project the Irish Minister for Education and Science, Dr.
Michael Woods, stated that the availability of advanced networking,
particularly high-speed access to the US will allow Irish institutions to
collaborate with the global academic community and thereby achieve
world-class research capabilities.

The Irish Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O’Rourke, welcomed this
project stating that it will assist in achieving the critical mass required
to give Ireland an international reputation in research, technological
development and innovation, allowing Ireland to develop as a true 21st
century knowledge society.

Mr. John Boland, Chief Executive of HEAnet added that this radical bandwidth
increase provides an exciting opportunity for Ireland to be placed
strategically at the core of advanced networking collaboration with the US.

About HEAnet
The mission of HEAnet is to deliver and support national and international
network infrastructure and services for the higher education academic and
research community.  For more information, see:
http://www.heanet.ie/

About Internet2(R)
Led by over 180 US universities working with industry and government,
Internet2 is developing and deploying advanced network applications and
technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of
tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 recreates the partnership of academia,
industry and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy.
For more information about Internet2, see:
http://www.internet2.edu/

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