The Kent Public Service Network (KPSN) is a

Public Services Network The Public Services Network (PSN) is a UK government's high-performance network, which helps public sector organisations work together, reduce duplication and share resources. It unified the provision of network infrastructure across the United ...

that provides connectivity to

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and Medway. It was built upon the Kent Community Network (KCN), which provided the

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

wide area network A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits. Businesses, as well as schools and government entities, u ...

(WAN) for schools and Kent County Council facilities in Kent, United Kingdom.

History

Kent Community Network

schools first used the Internet in 1985 for international email projects. Kent County Council's NGfL programme of 1998 provided every primary and special school with an Internet-connected laptop computer and provided networked access to secondary schools.

DfES The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was a United Kingdom government department between 2001 and 2007, responsible for the education system (including higher education and adult learning) as well as children's services in England. Th ...

made Kent an ICT Pathfinder authority. KCN currently provided broadband to over 540 schools. Internet connectivity was provided by two 2.5 Gbit/s connections, which terminate at the Maidstone and Canterbury WAN centres; these links were provided by KentMAN, a

JANET Janet may refer to: Names * Janet (given name) * Janet (French singer) (1939–2011) Surname * Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table * Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psych ...

service provider. The Kent Community Network provided broadband connectivity to every part of Kent, whether urban, rural or coastal. It aims to connect every secondary, primary and special school using a high-capacity connection which usually means

optical fiber cable A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable, but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with ...

to the school. The Kent Community Network provided

Websense Forcepoint, an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions. Forcepoint was fo ...

filtering to member schools.

Kent Public Service Network

KPSN began to be built from the KCN infrastructure in 2008. The

provides connectivity to

and Medway.

References

External links

* {{Official website, kpsn.net Internet in England Regional academic computer networks in the United Kingdom Science and technology in Kent