Page Updated: 04-May-2007
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Virtual Silk Highway

A computer networking project for the Caucasus and Central Asia

About... The Virtual Silk Highway

Concept of the Project

The academic and educational communities in the eight countries concerned will be connected to the Internet by way of a common satellite beam. New technology makes it possible for each of the countries to have its own minimum bandwidth capacity and at the same time make use of unused bandwidth of other participating countries. In addition, the use of modern data caching techniques, enabled by the choice of satellite technology, should allow further improvement in the effective bandwidth achieved.

The configuration necessary to achieve this goal consists of satellite dishes and network equipment in the eight countries, a central distribution point (hub) with a dish and network equipment in Western Europe, a contract with a satellite vendor, and Internet access.

Additional support will come from a number of sources, including the multinational electronics company Cisco Systems which will donate equipment, and also DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-SYnchrotron) of Hamburg, Germany, which has offered to host the European hub. DESY has had long experience in providing satellite services to several countries of the former Soviet Union, a number of which were (co)-funded by NATO grants.

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