KAREN - National Education Network

KAREN in a nutshell

The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) is your exclusive broadband network, linking education, research and innovation organisations in New Zealand, and across the world.

KAREN provides super fast, unrestricted broadband – many hundreds times faster than a standard internet connection – and with no use based charges. The network reaches across the country between 16 points of presence or 'meet me' points. Our international network extends all the way to Sydney and Seattle, connecting us with the rest of the world.

More than 220,000 students, researchers and educators at over 60 New Zealand universities, polytechnics, schools and government agencies have access to KAREN, as well as scientists at our Crown Research Institutes across the country. Our international network links you to over 200 million advanced network users worldwide.

The NEN provides very fast, unrestricted broadband to schools, creating a new learning environment for collaboration and to access online content and services. The NEN is a dedicated network for schools, separate from KAREN but using the best of KAREN's speed and capacity. Over 20 schools in New Zealand are currently connected to the NEN. See our KAREN member list to view the connected schools, and visit the NEN page on the KAREN wiki for information on the previous trial.

REANNZ has begun work on extending the NEN trial to another 200 schools. The extended trial will run until at least June 2011 and will provide schools with very fast, unrestricted broadband at 100Mb/s or greater. We expect to have the first new schools connected to the NEN by mid 2010.

The target schools for this phase of the trial are those that currently have open-access fibre connectivity (through regional cluster networks or local loops) or that will have access through the Government broadband roll-out.