On July 17, high speed internet was linked from Zambia to South Africa via a cable that passes through Zimbabwe. The internet will connect universities within the Zambia Research and Education Network to those within South Africa’s Tertiary Education Network. The new technology will allow researchers to share large amounts of data quickly and with a global audience.
As reported by SciDev.net, the medical research community will greatly benefit from the new connection. They can now share high definition images and work on them collaboratively with academics around the globe. The new link between the universities is the first of what will become a regional southern African network.
The high-speed connection is a four-year-long project with AfricaConnect and a result of a European Union contribution of around US $21 million. The remaining 20% of the project was funded by groups like the Association of African Universities, among many others. The contract for the work was agreed upon in May 2011 in Botswana. This connection is formed through a different infrastructure than commercial internet, and its creation signals a change in connectivity in the whole region, heralding faster connections all over.
Creative Commons Love: brylyn on Flickr.com
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