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First Brazilian Optical Network was inaugurated in may

Initiative will arrive to Brazilian northeast region in 2005

In a simultaneous ceremony at the headquarters of Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações (CPqD), in Campinas, and at Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), in Rio de Janeiro, on May 7th, the Giga Project network was launched. The network is 735-Km long and has a 2.5-Gbps capacity reaching the cities of Campinas, São Paulo, São José dos Campos, Cachoeira Paulista, Rio de Janeiro, Niterói and Petrópolis. The aim of this project is to develop technologies of optical network and telecommunication applications and services related to broad band. The project also aims the technology transfer to Brazilian companies.

The inauguration ceremony had the presence of the Ministers Eduardo Campos (Science and Technology) and Eunício Oliveira (Communications), besides other important people from the scientific and politic world. Campos highlighted the importance of Giga Project to the Brazilian development: “Nowadays we have, with Giga network, an open laboratory. It is an innovation experience to Brazil, the main high-speed network of Latin America”. From Instituto do Coração de São Paulo (Incor), through a videoconference meeting, the physician José Antônio Ramires remembered the importance of the high-speed networks to the success of the telemedicine. From Campinas, Eunício Oliveira has announced the intention to expand Giga Project to Brazilian northeast region.

The Giga Project links 17 universities and research centers in the Rio-São Paulo axis. The enlargement to the northeast region was confirmed on June 9th, with the signature of an accord among Telemar, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Communication. The Telemar’s optical fibers will guide Giga Project to Salvador, Aracaju, Maceió, Recife, João Pessoa, Natal and Fortaleza. The startup of “Giga Nordeste” is expected to 2005, the same year that RNP is planning to start the same technology of optical fiber on RNP2 academic backbone.

“The future of the advanced research network necessarily passes by the implementation of a national optical structure linking the education, research and innovation systems. RNP is now working to adopt these technologies in 10 points of presence of the production network in 2005”, said Nelson Simões, RNP General Director.

RNP Innovation Director, Michael Stanton, reminds that the technology used in Giga Project is “simpler and cheaper than the other ones used nowadays to internet commercial service and allows to offer to the user a 400-times superior access rate when compared to broad band ADSL connection, such as Speedy or Velox”.

The optical technology used in Giga Project is named WDM. This technology associates optical signals to different light frequencies (wavelenghts or lambdas) allowing to separate, in the same physical element (optical fiber), several channels to data transmission.

RNP selects 32 R&D subprojects

In December 2003, RNP has announced a program to select projects of protocol areas and network services and scientific applications and services to be implemented in the network of Giga Project. From the 39 received proposals, RNP has approved 32, involving 46 institutions of 15 Brazilian states.

Giga Project is funded by FINEP (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos) with FUNTTEL (Fundo para o Desenvolvimento Tecnológico das Telecomunicações) resources. The total fund is R$ 55 millions, to be applied during three years. The used optical fibers were yielded by telecommunication companies (Embratel, Intelig, Telemar and Telefonica).

[RNP, 30.07.2004]