New high-speed connection to soon connect universities

The University of Arkansas and all of the state’s four-year public universities will soon be connected to a high-speed fiber-optic-based Internet communications network.

Officials with the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (ARE-ON) announced Wednesday (Mar. 4) the new network will “expand research, academic, health care and emergency preparedness capabilities throughout the state by providing the universities access to national and international high-speed Internet networks such as the National LambdaRail and Internet 2.”

“This is a huge economic development initiative for Arkansas,” said Mike Abbiatti, executive director of ARE-ON, who participated in the founding and construction of a similar network in Louisiana before coming to Arkansas. “This network will bring Arkansas to a new level in terms of research and technology, giving us opportunities we’ve never seen before.”

Explaining further, Abbiatti said the network will give Arkansas campuses unique access to research and academic resources and allow for sharing among the universities’ current and future supercomputers.

The University of Arkansas was the first to be linked to the ARE-ON network in December 2006, and it’s been put to a variety of uses since then. For example, professors at the university’s School of Law are using the network to hold regular video conferencing sessions with students, colleagues and government officials in Ukraine to exchange ideas about ways to strengthen legal systems and enhance the rule of law.

ARE-ON officials have been working past two years to connect Arkansas’s public four-year universities, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture to the network through new and pre-existing fiber-optic cables running throughout the state.

ARE-ON member institutions include:
Arkansas State University, Jonesboro
Arkansas Tech University
Henderson State University
Southern Arkansas University
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
University of Arkansas
University of Arkansas at Fort Smith
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
University of Arkansas at Monticello
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
University of Central Arkansas