The National Education and Research Network (RNP) signed a Technical Cooperation Agreement with the Bahia State Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (Secti-BA) and the Bahia Research Foundation (Fapesb) to enable partnerships that contribute to the development of new connectivity projects and the advancement of quality internet access in the interior of the state.

The formalization took place last Thursday (4/20), at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) rectory. The acting rector of UFBA, Penildon Silva, the director general of Fapesb, Handerson Leite, the director of Fiocruz Bahia, Marilda Gonçalves, and the director general of RNP, Nelson Simões, were present.

Bahia was a pioneer in the arrival of the internet in Brazil, being one of the states to compose the academic network of RNP in 1992. Today, the metropolitan network of Salvador, Remessa, is one of the largest community optical networks in the metropolitan region of the country in number of connected institutions and a benchmark in governance for other states.

The Seventh Generation Ipê Network project, which raised academic network connections to the level of 100 Gb/s, was born from the cooperation agreement between RNP and Companhia Hidrelétrica do São Francisco (Chesf), passing through the territory of Bahia. Currently, the state is connected at very high speed with other states in the Northeast and other regions of Brazil. Another agreement, this time with the company Taesa, builds two new infoways connecting Bahia to the Federal District and Tocantins.

In addition, seven new metropolitan networks are being built in the interior of the state of Bahia, in Santo Antonio de Jesus, Irecê, Barreiras, Feira de Santana, Senhor do Bonfim, Ilhéus and Itabuna. The Metropolitan Network of Juazeiro and Petrolina, RedeVASF, is also being expanded, as were the networks of Vitória da Conquista, Guanambi and Itaberaba.

With resources from the Programa Educação Conectada, from the Ministry of Education, RNP is also implementing a fiber optic approach to 66 public schools in Bahia, 51 of them municipal and 15 state, in Juazeiro, in addition to deploying Wi-Fi wireless network infrastructure for students in these schools.

At the event, the general director of RNP Nelson Simões stated: “It is a new cycle of cooperation that has existed for years between UFBA, RNP and Secti-BA. There are many joint projects and actions that are mainly aimed at building safe spaces for communication between students and teachers in the state. With this, we are promoting quality education throughout the interior”.