Jordan launches national University Network

As part of the launch celebration, HM King Abdullah II inaugurated a videoconference held between the eight public university presidents, each from his campus, to showcase the capabilities and the advantages of this new network. Attending the launch, which was moderated by HE Dr. Fawaz Zu'bi, was His Excellency Prime Minister Faysal Al-Fayez, the Ministers of Education, Higher Education, and Planning, as well as Mr. John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems.

The University Learning and Research Network is the first component of the National Broadband Network, where eight public universities have been connected through a broadband network supporting high speed connectivity of up to 1 Gigabit per second.

"The objective of the National Broadband Network is to connect approximately 1.5 million learners in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan within the next three years. This will be achieved via the development of an advanced infrastructure to connect all of Jordan's public universities, schools, educational institutions and public access sites to one network" said HE Dr. Zu'bi. "We believe that the University Learning and Research Network is a key move forward in enhancing university to university interaction, research and development, catalyzing innovation and advancing learning for all of our university students."

The Ministry of ICT finalized the connection of the eight universities within the timeline and budget assigned to the project. The University network connects Jordan's eight public universities through nine different sites, utilizing the existing infrastructure of the National Electricity Power Company's (NEPCo) optical fiber network to minimize new infrastructure requirements for this network.

Two optical fiber pairs with a total length of 855Km from the existing NEPCo infrastructure have been utilized for to the network. In addition 65Km of civil works and optical fiber installation was executed to connect the public University sites to the existing NEPCo fiber infrastructure.,

"The National Broadband Network for Universities will drive the bandwidth that our higher education establishments need in order to build true connected learning capabilities, promoting the advancement of education and enhancement of research between the eight universities," said Haif Bannayan, Programme director of the National Broadband Network at MoICT. "In the next three years, our aim is to connect all of Jordan's public educational institutions to the network, an essential step toward the evolution of the educational system to encompass connected learning, a key element of Jordan's educational system moving forwards."

In a bid to further facilitate the network management, a non-profit company has been established under the name of (Unico), to operate and maintain the network on behalf of all eight public universities. The Ministry of ICT is supporting (Unico) to establish connectivity with 3,000 universities in Europe though the EUMEDCONNECT initiative. Furthermore the Ministry is assisting (Unico) to develop and enhance the Internet connectivity solutions deployed and operated by the universities.

"We believe that investment in human resources starts from investing in the educational system. Our commitment to integrating ICT into the learning process of all Jordanian students is irreversible, and we must now focus implementing innovative and effective approaches to leverage these investments to broaden Jordan's competitiveness in all sectors. This network announcement is only the start." added Dr. Zu'bi.