Digital NI 2020 – Kelvin +
February 12, 2010
In November we held the Monetising Kelvin event – the goal was to enlist active support to ensure we exploit to the full, the opportunities provided by the investments in communications infrastructure in NI. The completion of the Kelvin deployment, with a service go live date in March is a major addition to this infrastructure as it provides direct, high speed connectivity to North America and completes in some sense the external communication connectivity for NI. The feedback from the event was very positive and over the Christmas/New Year period, we have been in contact with a range of interested parties and have put forward a study proposal which will in effect produce as its output the plan for the next 2 years to accelerate realisation of the full range of benefits which can be accrued from Northern Ireland’s world class communication infrastructure.
Access to a high speed, high capacity, secure and robust communications infrastructure is one of the key enablers for a knowledge economy and indeed any 21st century national economy which has ambitions to grow and prosper in the decades ahead. It allows businesses to interact, it provides access to world markets, it enables active collaboration across a range of fields, improves and reduces the costs of health services, provides a platform for education and upskilling and has the potentially to generally improve a nation’s quality of life. Big claims I know, but none the less true. But none of this will happen without a proactive approach to grasping and exploiting the opportunity we have before us. In the weeks and months ahead, a number of initiatives will be launched, with the support of the Digital NI 2020 project. It is not a substitute for action on behalf of businesses, communities and individuals, rather it is there to help all of these entities launch their projects and encourage them to set high ambitions and then strive to exceed these.
In the weeks ahead we will be launching a blog, which I hope will become a multiway dialogue. This communications platform can serve all of the areas of Northern Ireland, and working in collaboration with the platform in the Republic of Ireland make the island of Ireland a first choice destination for global knowledge businesses, and the envy of the world in terms of health and education services.
In the words of one of the most famous French writers of the end of the 19th century, « To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe ». This is the challenge – to the deliver the dream of a connected world, with Northern Ireland acting as one of the leading hubs.
Sinclair, As a publisher, it’s of benefit to me to be able to move about large files and to work between offices across Belfast and across the Atlantic. How do I use Kelvin in that work. And secondly, what are the uses for a TV production company which is both making films and broadcasting live from Béal Feirste. Best, Mairitn
Martin, The key is geting high speed access on to the core infrastructure. The overall NI core comms infrastructure consists of three primary elements – “local access” (this can be via Broadband, 3G mobile or direct cable/fibre access), the NI fibre core network (this provides direct high speed fibre to most local exchanges and also a number of very high capacity fibre rings connecting all of the main population areas in NI) and international access (the new Kelvin transatlantic fibre cable polus all of the UK/European fibre routes and also the Dublin US link via our connections with the RoI network).
Kelvin plus the existing core fibre network covers the second and third items above. Provided you can have access to high speed connections to this, then the high speed core will ensure that your data can be transferred reliably and quickly both within NI and overseas.
With respect to programme production, the high speed core and transatlantic links make perfectly feasible to work with remote centres in other countries, particularly the US and UK, to cooperate in the creation of media. Again, your studio facility here would require a high speed link on to the core network, probably for production services, cable or fibre.
Hope you find this helpful, but feel free to call me on +33670799706 to follow up. Sinclair