National Education Network (NEN) of the schools in Bulgaria

The National Education Network is the largest scaled project in the Bulgarian educational system, intended to improve the quality of education and enrich the content by introducing innovative educational methods and technology in the educational process. The project is a impressive technological challenge, as 3200 schools throughout Bulgaria have to be interconnected within a short timeframe.

The consortium Schools Online, consisting of the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company (BTC), Telelink JSC, Paraflow Communications Ltd., Larexo JSC has been awarded the project to further implement the National strategy for introducing information and communication technology in the Bulgarian schools, decided upon by the Council of Ministers and envisaging the design and construction of the largest new generation virtual private network in the world. This network allows pupils and teachers even in the most remote and small sized towns and villages to enjoy broadband high-speed and cost-efficient access to the Internet community.

Total user count reaching one million users. The total project value amounts to 31,27 million leva (approx. 16 million EUR).

The Control Center of the network is erected on the basis of state-of-the-art information and communication technologies and solutions with hardware and software from leading companies. By utilizing the systems in the Control Center, the network provides each pupil with a complex set of services: e-mail, secured Internet access, information portal, file and print services, antivirus and antispam protection, access control, remote automated installation and update of applications, user rights management. Considering the substantial user count as well as the rigorous demands for availability of the network, best-of-breed technologies have been used in order to guarantee highest availability, access and efficiency of the services.

The international traffic will be ensured by using the Bulgarian academic network, erected by the Geant2 project – seventh generation pan-european network of the educational and scientific institutions, that interconnects 34 countries, over 90% of all universities and scientific institutions in Europe, with a 10 Gbit backbone capacity.