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Published on November 13, 2007

Wichan Lertwipatrakul, director of UniNet, said the office planned to upgrade the speed of the network in the provinces from 155 and 310 megabits per second to 2.5 gigabits per second in the next three years.

It will also upgrade the local network linked to each university throughout the country from 34 megabits per second to 155 megabits per second.

The move is to serve the increasing trend of online learning and online research among universities.

"As the network provider for education and research purposes, UniNet has to increase the speed of the network to make many more research and educational activities available," said Wichan.

Due to the new era of education, the online network is playing an important role facilitating students, teachers and researchers to conduct educational activities in which they conveniently share, exchange and collaborate together.

UniNet will negotiate with fibre-optic cable owners in the provinces such as the Provincial Electricity Authority and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to provide a high-speed network at a special price in support of educational activities.

The move is also to encourage education and research collaboration among different universities over the high-speed network rather than only within the university campuses. It also serves the goal of UniNet to be the main high-speed network for education and research in Thailand.

Thailand's UniNet has already provided network links for education and research purposes to allow universities in Thailand to connect directly to universities in the Asia-Pacific region through the Asia Pacific Advance Network, and to universities in Europe and Australia through the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TIEN2) at 155 megabits per second.

These links allow students, teachers, professors and researchers to conduct online and real-time learning through the high-speed network smoothly and conveniently.

"This type of learning could not occur without the networks, so UniNet is committed to providing high-speed networks to facilitate and encourage more of these educational activities in order to improve the educational development of the country," said Wichan.

UniNet's network is also connected to Local Exchange at 2 gigabits per second, to the Education Ministry's network at 1 gigabit per second, to the ThaiSarn network at 1 gigabit per second, to the Internet 2 network at 155 megabits per second, and to the commercial Internet network at 730 megabits per second. The core network in Bangkok is run at 10 gigabits per second.

There are around 24 government-based universities plus 25 campuses, 38 Rajabhat universities, nine Rajamangala universities plus 41 campuses, 20 community colleges, two monks' colleges with 15 campuses, and other educational institutions outside the responsibility of the Commission on Higher Education.

Asina Pornwasin

 The Nation