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RNP launches international link of 155 Mbps

Last Friday, February 16, RNP implanted a new international connection of 155 Mbps. The new link, which connects Rio de Janeiro to New York, will serve both for normal Internet traffic and for the traffic of Internet2 applications. This new link replaced the four links of 2 Mbps that were used before.

Local access in PoP-RJ was installed in the beginning of the year. The link was supposed to have been activated on January 31 , when RNP put into operation a Cisco 12000 router with a duly configurated POS 155 interface. However, Embratel found flaws during testing the equipment and postponed its activation.

Initially, the new channel will serve only the traffic to global Internet. To conclude access to the North American Internet2 network, only two things are pending: the formalization of an Agreement of Acceptable Use (AAU) and the implantation of a link between New York and Chicago's STAR TAP.

The AAU determines access policies in an Internet network. RNP is making this document in order to present it to the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), the institution that maintains Internet2. STAR TAP - Science, Technology, And Research Transit Access Point - is the point of convergence created by the National Science Foundation so as to facilitate the interconnection among the international advanced networks. The company Cable and Wireless has already been hired to make the link with STAR TAP .

Connection between RNP2 and Internet2 is the last step of the current phase of the project of the high performance Brazilian academic network

RNP2 project, concerning the implantation of a high performance Brazilian academic network, started in 1997. The lack of a long distance infrastructure based on optical fiber made RNP and ProTeM-CC - the Multiinstitutional Thematic Program on Computer Science - create the project of the High Performance Metropolitan Networks in Brazil (ReMAVs). In May 2000, as the optical fiber network had already been expanded, the implantation of RNP2 backbone was begun. This network uses ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technology for the points of greater traffic and FR (Frame Relay) to interconnect the PoPs with less data traffic. The capacity of the new backbone is equal to up to 155 Mbps. The connection to the backbone of the North American Internet2 network is the last step of the current phase of RNP2 project.

The partnership between RNP2 and Internet2 projects has already been effective since March 2000, when the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by RNP and UCAID. Besides the 155 Mbps link provided by Embratel, a 45 Mbps link between Rio de Janeiro and Florida will be offered by Global Crossing for three years, free of charge, as a result of Americas Path (AmPath) project. With direct access to Abilene, the main backbone of Internet2 network, it will be used only for interconnection and cooperation between academic networks for the development of new applications.

A third international connection, directly to Europe, may also be established in 2001, as a result of Brazil-Germany Cooperation Agreement on Science and Technology, which will permit the interconnection of RNP2 and the Pan-European backbone, GEANT.

[RNP, February 19, 2000]

[RNP, 02.19.2001]