Ethiopian Education and Research Network (EthERNet) was initiated in 2001 as part of a national capacity building program that included projects such as SchoolNet and WoredaNet that aimed to provide connectivity and specialized applications for Schools and for local governments.
EthERNet was launched to build and deliver highly interconnected and high-performance networks for universities and other Educational and Research Institutions in Ethiopia. More specifically, EthERNet was aimed to build and deliver high performance networking that connected these institutions with each other and similar institutions in the world, and by doing this to enable them to share educational resources and collaborate both within Ethiopia and globally.
Currently EthERNet has a network with 1Gbs/sec or better bandwidth that ties many of the established universities in Ethiopia. In addition, a big project to build the next generation network that would provide 10GBit/sec to each of the public universities and interconnecting them, has been launched. This network which will provide a very high performing, robust network that will be build to minimize single points of failure through the use of network rings in various parts of the network. It is being built not only to provide the bandwidth that is currently needed but to also provide capacity for a very dynamic growth that will demand higher bandwidths in the coming years.
A driver in this new high-performance/bandwidth network is EthERNet’s vision to provide a highly interconnected and advanced network of Ethiopian Research and Education institutions that enables institutions to actively and effectively participate in the national, regional and global research and education communities.
EthERNet is owned by the Ministry of Education. ICT Center of Excellence (Ethiopia) is working closely with MoE to build a strong organizational framework for EthERNet that will enable it to invite and engage a wide range of stakeholders such as Universities and involve them in helping set the direction and services that EthERNet develops and delivers. This will be a strong foundation for getting the stakeholders to become active users and supporters of the services that EthERNet delivers.