 "Photo: The Penn/ Brandon Oakes")
Three schools belonging to PASSHE are about to become high-tech after plans were announced to build a new high-speed Internet.
IUP will be one of 13 hub sites to anchor the Pennsylvania Research and Education Network project.
PennREN will extend about 1,700 miles through 39 counties, with the potential to provide a high-speed Internet backbone to more than 5 million residents in more than 2 million households and 200,000 businesses, according to an IUP news release.
The initiative will implement a fiber optic network, which uses strands of optically pure glass as thin as human hair that carries digital information over long distances using pulses of light to transmit data.
“This honor demonstrates the quality and strength of IUP’s information technology infrastructure, staff and leadership,” IUP President Tony Atwater said, according to the news release. The network will also provide the capability to connect colleges and universities, public institutions, regional networks and last-mile providers across the commonwealth, according to a National Telecommunication and Information Administration document.
Other PennREN hub sites among PASSHE universities include Clarion and Slippery Rock. Institutions of higher education were chosen as hub sites because of their strong presence in the potential service area.
On Feb. 18, President Barack Obama’s administration awarded $99.6 million in federal stimulus funding to the Keystone Initiative for Network-Based Education and Research for the project. KINBER is a coalition of Pennsylvania colleges, universities, research and health care organizations and economic development entities that submitted a joint application for the construction and management of a statewide broadband network.
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