Govt commits to broadband in south

BY MICHAEL FORBES

Lightning-fast, unrestricted broadband for the Southland education and research community is a step closer, after a funding commitment from the government.

The Tertiary Education Commission has offered $210,000 to establish the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network in Invercargill.

It will connect the Southern Institute of Technology and other tertiary and training institutions to more then 200 million researchers, students, teachers and scientists from across the globe.

According to its website, KAREN is an unconstrained network, which means users can access as much information, tools, people and content as they wish without usage-based charges.

Data can be transferred at up to 10 gigabits a second – 2500 times the speed of a standard broadband connection – enabling almost instantaneous sharing of data over long distances.

Members pay a fixed charge for unlimited usage and can do what they like on the network.

Venture Southland enterprise and strategic projects group manager Steve Canny said Southland needed the network to stay in touch with the latest research and information being shared worldwide.

"If you want to log on to the high speed networks of the big universities overseas, then you need something like this."

The total cost of the connection was estimated at $400,000, he said.

The broadband infrastructure needed was already in place, Mr Canny said.

Interested parties were required to provide the balance of $190,000 of that money before the project could go ahead, he said.

SIT chief executive Penny Simmonds said the network would foster better links between its Christchurch, Queenstown and Gore campuses.

The institute would also be able to provide its courses via video link, Ms Simmonds said.

The amount of money SIT would contribute was dependent on the number of parties that jumped on board, she said.

But SIT had a figure of about $50,000 in mind, she said.

Mr Canny said it was likely only SIT and University of Otago's Southland Campus would be on board initially, but he expected most secondary schools and hospitals would eventually join the network.

Venture Southland was in talks with the Invercargill Licensing Trust and Community Trust of Southland to secure the balance of funding, he said.

He hoped those talks would be over by Christmas, so construction of the network could begin in the new year, he said.

michael.forbes@stl.co.nz

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