iBeamNH provides gigabit and multi-gigabit service to all USNH institutions*, and to a number of Community Anchor Institution partners across New Hampshire, in support of education, research, healthcare, public safety, government, and the public good.
iBeamNH designed, constructed, and operates a 70-site, fiber-based Wide Area Network (WAN) throughout all 10 counties in New Hampshire. The network runs on USNH’s 800-mile fiber optic backbone, as well as over leased long-haul transport, internet, and Internet2 services from multiple regional and national telecom providers. The network is designed with emphasis on performance and uptime. The fiber network is built using rings around the state, which can reroute traffic in the event of individual fiber cuts. The iBeamNH team excels in collaborating beyond New Hampshire by leveraging partnerships with our sister institutions in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Vermont. These collaborative efforts provide multiple, geo-diverse connections to the internet and Internet2; enable greater purchasing power; and create a vibrant, supportive community of technical experience.
Based in extensive training and in-house expertise, as well as our values of partnership and compassion, the iBeamNH team provides the highest level of collaborative support.
An added benefit of iBeamNH includes direct connections to our partners’ infrastructure at multiple New Hampshire higher-education institutions. These include the UNH Enterprise Technology Systems Data Center and Research Computing Center, which provide access to colocation facilities for backup and resiliency as well as high-speed access to high-performance computing and application resources such as the Cray High Performance Computer; the UNH Interoperability Lab; KSC & PSU labs and degree programs, including PSU’s meteorology Instrumentation & Resources; systems at the Community College; and many other labs and research groups. This connectivity further enables direct interaction and collaboration with the USNH IT staff including the network architect, cyberinfrastructure engineers, Cooperative Extension faculty, and experts in hundreds of fields.
The iBeamNH team consistently strives to achieve the best value for tuition-payers, NH taxpayers, and our partners beyond USNH. We create competition among providers, collaborate with our regional higher-education partners, seek grant funding for capital improvements, and grow our consortium of partners in order to increase scale of buying power. We continually change technologies swiftly to follow the most cost-effective solutions available.
Over the past decade, iBeamNH, along with states, regions, and higher-education institutions across the world**, have realized huge gains in performance and pricing by investing in access to long-haul fiber optic cable systems across the state and the region, and operating the equipment that lights the fiber ourselves. Fiber optic cable has literally millions of times the bandwidth-capacity of copper-wire-based systems, and trillions that of any wireless system today.
The iBeamNH team will continue in its mission to improve and grow to meet the needs of our partners, and to help them achieve their missions and their goals without having to worry about networking. We thank you for your continued collaboration and support.
