SANReN (

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

n National Research Network) is the project to create a new

National Research and Education Network A national research and education network (NREN) is a specialised internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education communities within a country. It is usually distinguished by support for a high-speed backb ...

in South Africa. However, unlike most other NRENs, SANReN will provide its clients with both connectivity to the world's research networks as well as commodity Internet access. In 2005, the South African Department of Science and Technology obtained funding from treasury for a ZAR 365 million, three-year project to build a world-class

to further the country's research aims. The DST then tasked th
Meraka Institute
with the planning and deployment of this network, to be completed by the middle of 2010. An initial Request for Information was published in 2005, followed by two Request for Proposals in 2006. The original proposal called for inter-institution links of up to 500

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

and international bandwidth of 1

Gbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

. Due to budget constraints, the implementation of the network proceeded in phases with a prioritisation of institutions, such as the

Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is a radio astronomy observatory, located in a natural bowl of hills at Hartebeesthoek just south of the Magaliesberg mountain range, Gauteng, South Africa, about 50 km west of Johannes ...

site, that were of specific strategic importance to the South African science initiatives. The scope of SANReN's network has changed somewhat since the original RFPs were published, with most sites now expecting to connect at speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s. With further phases of the project coming on line, most of the

public universities A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national university ...

in the country will be included. Originally international Internet connectivity will be provided over the SEACOM submarine fibre cable, in a deal unrelated to the original SANReN RFP. It is expected that SANReN will also take advantage of other cable projects once they come online. Late in 2007, Meraka announced that it had partnered with the then provider of academic networking in South Africa,

TENET A tenet is a synonym for axiom, one of the principles on which a belief or theory is based. Tenet may also refer to: Media * Tenet (band), a heavy metal band * TENET (ensemble), an American early music vocal and instrumental group * ''Tenet'' (f ...

. Under their memorandum of understanding, Meraka would build SANReN and TENET would operate it. This arrangement is very similar to the relationship between

GÉANT GÉANT is the pan-European data network for the research and education community. It interconnects national research and education networks (NRENs) across Europe, enabling collaboration on projects ranging from biological science, to earth obser ...

and

DANTE Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. As of September 2008, SANReN has connected three higher educational institutes in

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

: the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

, the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is a public university located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the Te ...

, the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria ( af, Universiteit van Pretoria, nso, Yunibesithi ya Pretoria) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was ...

, the

Tshwane University of Technology Tshwane University of Technology (TUT; af, Tshwane-Universiteit vir Tegnologie) is a higher education institution in South Africa that came into being through a merger of three technikons — Technikon Northern Gauteng, Technikon North-West and ...

http://www.tenet.ac.za/ TENET: The Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa Retrieved 21 March 2011 and the

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is South Africa's central and premier scientific research and development organisation. It was established by an act of parliament in 1945 and is situated on its own campus in the cit ...

(of which Meraka is part).

References

{{reflist

External links

SANReN website (CSIR Meraka Institute)Tertiary Education Network website
Higher education in South Africa Internet in Africa National research and education networks