Infrastructures and Security News Évora District with New Generation Network Évora District with New Generation Network
- 07/05/2008
The ceremony to launch the project “Designing and Building a broadband Community Network in the Évora District” was held on 8 May 2008 at 12.30 in the Espinheiro Convent in Évora, and was presided over by the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago.
This ceremony was an opportunity for the Évora District to acknowledge the start of work to shortly join the restricted set of regions with New Generation Networks which enable good broadband connections using fibre optics.
This network consists of a fibre-optic ring connecting 14 municipal centres in the Évora District, the University of Évora, various Areas, Industrial Parks and Technological Centres. It extends more than 450 Km and will enable high broadband connections of between 1 and 10 Gigabits per second.
Its main objectives are to fight e-exclusion, promoting equal opportunities and universal public broadband access in the region, to rectify asymmetries in telecommunications accessibility, and to develop entrepreneurial technological and scientific initiatives in the region.
The Évora District Community Network should be finished by the end of this year and will have two connection points to the Science, Technology and Society Network (RCTS) which for ten years has ensured broadband connectivity to the scientific and higher educational communities and which will be linked into Évora’s municipal broadband network.
This network was approved following a public tender to support the design and construction of Broadband Community Networks, which was opened in 2006 through the Knowledge Society Operational Programme (POSC), an entity run by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.
The launch ceremony is to be preceded by a Round Table entitled “Broadband Community Networks – A Contribution to Regional Development”, which will start at 10:30 and will be opened by the Coordinator of the Technological Plan, Carlos Zorrinho, and will be chaired by the President of The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), Luis Magalhães. Also taking part in this roundtable will be Nicola Villa, IBSG Director of Cisco, Alfredo Batista, Executive Director at Portugal Telecom, Jaime Quesado, Manager of POSC, and Alfredo Barroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ADRAL.
The Broadband Community Networks are public broadband networks in less well-off areas or where there are gaps in the telecommunications market. They have to be neutral with regard to competing technological solutions (e.g. copper, fibre optics, GSM/GPRS, UMTS, FWA, WiMax, Power Line, etc.). They have to show economic sustainability and provide equal access to all operators in tenders opened for their running. They have to make it possible to take advantage of existing infrastructures belonging to municipal water, or similar, companies, and may complement communications infrastructures set up as part of Digital Cities and Digital Regions projects in regions which meet the aforementioned criteria for these types of networks.
The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) set up and operates the Technical Support Commission (CAT), which was established to help individuals with the application process and to monitor implementation of the projects that are approved.
As part of the aforementioned tender, approval was given in April 2007 to four Broadband Community Networks projects, including the Évora District project and also Broadband Community Networks projects in Terra Quente Transmontana, in Vale do Minho and in Vale do Lima, which together form a network more than 1 000 Km in length, involving a total investment of 34 million Euros.
Map of the Community Network in the Évora District
Click on the image below to enlarge it
