Cinia and NORDUnet aim to position the Nordics as part of the new digital superhighway

Cinia and NORDUnet have signed a MOU regarding a network sharing arrangement, which aims to benefit the Nordic business and science society. The co-operation will provide better services and create new opportunities for scientific organisations, government bodies, and public and private enterprises.

As a first result of this agreement NORDUnet will gain access to 100 Gbps of capacity on the C-Lion cable between Finland and Germany, on the stretch between Helsinki and Hamburg.

This will add a third and diverse route out of Finland to the NORDUnet network, and will also provide for a direct high capacity link from the NORDUnet open exchange point in Helsinki (NOX-HEL) to other R&E exchange points in Europe utilising the NORDUnet optical network and eventually form part of a Global R&E infrastructure.

Further sharing opportunities may include collaborations that will open up for capacity going east to Asia on a direct low latency route. To Cinia and NORDUnet It is utterly important that one of the new digital superhighways between Europe and Asia will pass through Nordics and Finland, to the benefit of Nordic business and science society. And with the signed arrangement Cinia and NORDUnet have agreed to join their forces to create these new international information backbone routes.

Read the full press release here:

Helsinki, 20.9.2016  -  NORDUnet, a collaboration between the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) of the five Nordic countries, and intelligent connectivity company Cinia Group have made a network sharing arrangement, which aims to benefit the Nordic business and science society. The co-operation will provide better services and create new opportunities for scientific organisations, government bodies, and public and private enterprises.

Both NORDUnet and Cinia emphasize Nordic cooperation and synergies for the wider network coverage and points of presence in the Nordics. Also, new points of presence are actively sought in areas such as scientific research, meteorology, use of supercomputers, and data centre development.

 “It is utterly important for Nordic business and science society that one of the new digital superhighways between Europe and Asia will pass through Nordics and Finland. With the signed arrangement Cinia and NORDunet have agreed to join their forces to create new international information backbone routes,” says Cinia’s CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila.

“The eastern part of Nordics has been an isolated endpoint in various maps. Cinia’s new C-Lion1 network expansion has opened a new great Northern opportunity. We want to make joint proposals for our stakeholders in order to build and develop more routes, wider connectivity, and new systems with both terrestrial and sea-cable systems,” says CEO René Buch from NORDUnet.

NORDUnet and Cinia have agreed that both parties may utilize the other’s network and provide network sharing arrangements in order to give the stakeholders a chance to benefit from wider coverage and better redundancy.