Higher education IT body the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) has announced details of a £29m next-generation network to support multimedia education and research.

Traffic on the UK’s academic network Janet doubles every nine months and a new fibre backbone, known as SuperJanet5, will ensure that supply of network capacity remains ahead of increases in demand.

Dr Malcolm Read, Jisc executive secretary, says Janet has successfully supported the academic community for 20 years, but a new network is essential.

‘Continued investment is vital if UK education and research are to remain globally competitive, if they are to have the best e-infrastructure possible and if increased demand is to be met,’ he said.

Read says the research community will benefit most from continued investment in the UK’s network infrastructure.

But he also says students and staff are increasingly making use of multimedia content in their learning and teaching.

‘The streaming of such multimedia content has important bandwidth implications,’ he said.

‘And learners in all of the communities served by Jisc will also benefit from the increased resilience of the upgrade, with its much-reduced risk of downtime.’

Brian Turtle, director of the Belfast Institute and chairman of Jisc’s network committee, says extensive consultation was conducted by Ukerna, which manages the network for Jisc.

‘SuperJanet5 needs to be able to manage the increasing data transfer requirements being made on the network, while providing the highest quality service for all users across a range of sectors,’ said Turtle.

Network supplier MCI has been selected as the preferred bidder and the contract will see an increase in network capacity from 2Gbit/s to 10Gbit/s, eventually rising to 40Gbit/s.

MCI will provide SuperJanet5’s state-of-the-art fibre infrastructure, linking 19 regional networks across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

It will potentially support up to 18 million users.