Pennsylvania’s KINBER Selects Ekinops to Increase Network Capacity to 100GE

The Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER), Pennsylvania’s statewide research, education and community networking organization, has vastly increased its capacity and service capability over its statewide PennREN backbone infrastructure using optical networking equipment from Ekinops.

Harrisburg-based KINBER provides network connectivity and services – including IP, Ethernet, and wavelength services – to more than 80 organizations in Pennsylvania. KINBER owns and operates a more than 1,800-mile fiber network across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with access points in 47 of the 67 Pennsylvania counties.

To meet increasing demand, KINBER successfully installed two 100G long-haul connections using its Ekinops 360 platform, one span extending 166 miles and the other extending 609 miles of the East Ring of the PennREN Network with a round-trip latency of only 11 milliseconds on the longer route. KINBER’s PennREN network upgrade using Ekinops 360 represents the first availability of 100GE capability across the commonwealth.

Installing the equipment over an existing third-party ROADM network, Ekinops was able to provide a cost-efficient solution supporting both 100G and 10G services running on parallel links on the same network.

Key to KINBER’s selection of Ekinops were the ability to deliver the higher bandwidth and improved performance without requiring any upgrade to the existing core network, and the ability to deliver an optimal transport solution that eliminated three regeneration sites. For KINBER, this means a major reduction in both capital and operating expenses.

In its decision, KINBER also valued Ekinops’ ability to meet tight delivery timelines, essential to its ability to satisfy its customers.

With the Ekinops 360 platform in place, KINBER now has dual 100G wavelength connectivity, with extremely low latency, across its research and education network. To meet the demands of all its end-users, KINBER is now able to provide high-speed services from Scranton to Pittsburgh, Erie to Philadelphia, or any city in-between, throughout the Commonwealth.

"It was critical to us to not only implement a network with far more capacity, but to do it quickly and make sure there would be no interruption in service to our users,” said Mike Carey, Director of Operations of KINBER. "We were very impressed with Ekinops’ ability to deliver on its implementation and performance promises.”

"We’re excited to have KINBER on board as a valued Ekinops partner,” said Kevin Antill, Vice President of Sales, North America. "Research and education networks are heavy bandwidth users and this move to 100G will assure that KINBER can continue to meet its service requirements. This is an ideal application for Ekinops as it demonstrates our ability to deliver solutions that remove cost from the network and provide superior performance while seamlessly integrating with the existing infrastructure.”

About KINBER

The Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER) is Pennsylvania’s statewide research, education and community network. The non-profit membership organization is comprised of education, healthcare, economic development, libraries, public media, government and other non-profit organizations devoted to fostering collaboration through technology. Established in 2010 through a $99.6 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, KINBER provides network connectivity and services to more than 80 organizations in Pennsylvania. KINBER is committed to delivering equitable, reliable and affordable digital infrastructure and tools to inspire tomorrow’s scientific discoveries, enable the exchange of ideas and culture among diverse populations, educate the next generation of citizens and revitalize Pennsylvania’s economy. For more information, visit KINBER.org or follow @KINBER on Twitter.

About Ekinops

Ekinops is a leading provider of open and fully interoperable layer 1, 2 and 3 solutions to service providers around the world. Our programmable and highly scalable solutions enable the fast, flexible and cost-effective deployment of new services for both high-speed, high-capacity optical transport as well as virtualization-enabled managed enterprise services. Our product portfolio consists of two highly complementary product sets. One, marketed under the Ekinops 360 brand name, provides a single, fully integrated platform for Metro, Regional, and Long-Haul applications. The other, marketed under the OneAccess brand name, provides a wide choice of physical and virtualized deployment options for layer 2 and layer 3 network functions. As service providers embrace SDN and NFV deployment models, Ekinops’ solutions enable them to deploy today in the knowledge that they can seamlessly migrate to an open virtualized delivery model at a time of their choosing. A global organization, with operations in four continents; Ekinops (EKI) - a public company traded on the Euronext Paris exchange - is headquartered in Lannion, France, and Ekinops Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary, is incorporated in the USA.

Mnemonic code: EKI
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