FUNET
Encyclopedia
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
University and Research Network, a backbone network
Backbone network
A backbone network or network backbone is a part of computer network infrastructure that interconnects various pieces of network, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks. A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same building, in different...
providing Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
connections for Finnish universities and polytechnics as well as other research facilities. It is governed by the state-owned CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd. The FUNET project started in December 1983 and soon gained international connectivity via EARN with DECnet
DECnet
DECnet is a suite of network protocols created by Digital Equipment Corporation, originally released in 1975 in order to connect two PDP-11 minicomputers. It evolved into one of the first peer-to-peer network architectures, thus transforming DEC into a networking powerhouse in the 1980s...
as the dominant protocol. FUNET was connected to the greater Internet through NORDUnet
NORDUnet
NORDUnet is an international collaboration between the Nordic national computer networks for research and education. The members of NORDUnet are:* SUNET of Sweden* UNINETT of Norway* FUNET of Finland* Forskningsnettet of Denmark* RHnet of Iceland...
in 1988. The FUNET FTP service went online in 1990, hosting the first versions of Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
in 1991.
The main backbone connections have gradually been upgraded to optical fiber
Fiber-optic communication
Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information...
since 2008. Subscriber connections are mainly 1000 or 100 Mbit/s Ethernet, but also 10G links and dedicated lightpaths are offered. FUNET is connected to other research networks through NORDUnet, and to other Finnish ISPs
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
via three FICIX
Finnish Communication and Internet Exchange
The Finnish Communication and Internet Exchange is the first and the biggest Internet exchange point in Finland. As of 2009, FICIX consists of three exchange points....
points. The most important foreign connection from Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
has a capacity of 10 Gbit/s.