Via Educational Technology, comes a link to an IEEE Spectrum Online article on the Alberta SuperNet, Across the Great Divide, The Alberta SuperNet is a model for the broadband future–everywhere [By Steven M. Cherry].
The SuperNet is one province’s determined attempt to create a high-speed telecommunications backbone throughout a land mass bigger than the Iberian Peninsula but with fewer people than Albania. When it’s completed, sometime after July, it will tie together 1300 schools, hospitals, and libraries and just about every dot on the map of Alberta–422 dots in all. SuperNet won’t itself be an Internet service provider. Rather, it will provide raw network connectivity via the Internet protocol–the fundamental global standard for moving around packets of data.
The article provides an overview of the goals and benefits of the network, and a nice summary of the development history. As well, it gives a really good explanation of the “Layers” in a network and how they are used. Nice summary article! Lots I did not know there… and, nice to see Alberta showcased!