HEAnet

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HEAnet (Ireland's National Education & Research Network), provides high-speed Internet access to academic institutions in Ireland direct to European and USA networks. The network is funded by the Higher Education Authority and is a WAN-based network.

In 1984 the network was created with assistance from Dublin Institute of Technology, NIHE, Dublin (Dublin City University), NIHE, Limerick(University of Limerick), Trinity College, Dublin, University College, Cork, University College, Dublin and University College, Galway. Today approximately 35 organisations support its work, including the Institutes of Technology as well as other colleges and non-education organisations in Ireland.

HEAnet helped set up INEX, the Internet Neutral EXchange, to allow internet service provider systems to interchange traffic within Ireland and was the first to connect at 10 Gbit/s . HEAnet is connected to INEX via one 10 Gbit/s link and one 1 Gbit/s link, JANET in the UK via two 1 Gbit/s links, GEANT in Europe via two 2.5 Gbit/s links and the General Internet via two 2.5 Gbit/s links. They also have several links to research networks in North America. Additionally there are several non-research links to the USA, Europe and South-East Asia.

HEAnet also hosts a popular mirror service, ftp.heanet.ie, which acts as a mirror for projects such as SourceForge.net, Debian, Ubuntu and Red Hat.