Back in 1994 a high-speed fibre-optic cable was laid. It linked Nottingham Trent University to The University of Nottingham and its connection to SuperJANET – the UK’s education and research network.
Not only that, EMMAN (East Midlands Metropolitan Area Network) was born, bringing resilient internet access to the places it linked up. But, little did the people behind it realise that within15 years the network would have grown so much. It now has some 600,000 people using it.
We helped EMMAN link up six more universities to the core network. And using a range of our managed solutions, we also helped EMMAN expand even more. This included some 40 further education colleges, research facilities, and even the National Space Centre. Not bad for a network that originally started out as a single point-to-point link!
EMMAN. Expanding into the future.
When a student at an East Midland university logs onto the internet, it’s thanks to JANET(UK) and to EMMAN.
It also connects to SuperJANET – which allows institutions to collaborate and share resources – like research databases and specialist software. And every student’s worst nightmare – a major system outage at exam time – should be unthinkable, thanks to the network’s disaster recovery facility.
A bright future for EMMAN
When we were first asked to help with EMMAN’s expansion plans, our team recommended the installation of a Dark Fibre solution to link up the universities involved. It offers very high performance, and because it’s a privately operated fibre network, there’s no need to purchase bandwidth capacity. Spot on for educational institutions with their increasing data demands.
Over the years we have provided EMMAN with a complete network solution – a real combination of unmanaged infrastructure and managed services. Since the initial solution, we’ve supplied a whole host of our managed services like National Ethernet, Leased Lines and Ethernet Extensions helping EMMAN to grow.
It’s all two-way traffic with today’s students
Students today are as demanding as ever. Things like video conferencing and multimedia learning are doubling capacity requirements every 18 months or so. Fortunately, it’s a straightforward task for EMMAN to increase connection speeds across their high-capacity core network.
Educational growth
The EMMAN network is relied upon by literally thousands of students, academics and administrators.
Robustness was and is, absolutely vital. Which is why our planners have ensured no establishment is left dependent on a single connection. It’s revolutionised teaching in the East Midlands, allowing the introduction of multimedia teaching methods. It’s also provided greater efficiencies, not to mention major cost savings. For instance, at Nottingham Trent University, almost a third of all phones are now VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) enabled. Calls are carried over our Next Generation Network, and cost savings enjoyed by the University. EMMAN continues to evolve, linking up with more academic sites and public sector bodies like hospitals and local authorities. Institutions are free to take advantage of their high-speed connectivity in any way they wish.
Whatever they want to do, EMMAN always comes with the back-up and support of our experts.
