The ALICE Project

The ALICE (America Latina Interconectada Con Europa) project was set up in 2003 to develop an IP research network infrastructure within the Latin American region and towards Europe. It addressed the infrastructure objectives of the European Commission’s @LIS programme, which aimed to promote the Information Society and fight the digital divide throughout Latin America.

Owing to its success, the ALICE project was extended until March 2008 from its original end date of May 2006. Since then the countries participating in CLARA have been responsible for the sustainability of the organisation and the regional Latin American infrastructure. Connectivity to Europe and to other world regions has been sustained in 2008 through cost-sharing between the respective partners.

Background

The ALICE project implemented the recommendations of the CAESAR study, which was carried out between March and October 2002. This investigated the feasibility of connecting the Latin American national research and education networks to GÉANT via a Latin American regional research network. It concluded that there was a real demand for this, and that developing such a network was technically feasible.

Funding and Organisation

The European Commission actively supported ALICE and provided co-funding to the project of EUR10 million. This constituted 80% of the project’s funding, with the remainder being provided by the project partners.

The EC asked DANTE to coordinate this project and transfer the knowledge that DANTE had gained over the previous decade in Europe to Latin America. The project was managed by DANTE, and had 4 European and 19 Latin American partners. In Europe these were the NRENs of France, Italy, Portugal and Spain (RENATER, INFN/GARR, FCCN and RedIRIS respectively), who have close historical and social ties with Latin America.

Within Latin America, the technical management of the RedCLARA network, which provides IP research network infrastructure within the Latin American region and towards Europe, was carried out by CLARA (Cooperación Latino Americana de Redes Avanzadas).

Benefits

Previously, research collaboration between Latin America and Europe had been hindered by the lack of a dedicated connection between the two regions. The ALICE project directly addressed this issue, with more countries joining the network all the time. ALICE made a fundamental contribution to the ability of researchers in Latin America to collaborate in research projects around the world.

The network built by ALICE also significantly improved the regional communications infrastructure in Latin America. While the initial impact was on research and education institutions, the provision of improved communications infrastructure had additional social development and healthcare benefits for the general population.

The project stimulated the local development of some of the Latin American partners. Many are now focusing their efforts in developing their own national networks, giving them the ability to access the global research and education community.