MARnet – NETRA

Broadband microwave connectivity for state universities

A turnkey solution for broadband connectivity of the state owned universities in the Republic of North Macedonia.

MARnet as a national academic and research network plays an important role in development of the information society in the Republic of North Macedonia. One of its main tasks is running and maintaining a national data network for interconnecting state owned universities and other educational institutions.

To further expand their network, MARnet was in a search for solution for fast deployment of new interconnections to dispersed university locations as a mean of connecting to GÈANT – the Pan-European data network for research and education. Although high capacity MW wireless network was the most applicable solution, MARnet did not own any infrastructure for long distance MW network.

Accepted solution was sharing network resources with the existing high capacity MW network operated by PE National Broadcasting .

Having a tracking record of highest number of deployed MW systems in the region and applied now-khow in development of broadband transmission networks with products from reliable partners like Ceragon Networks, Cisco and Enatel Energy, NETRA was chosen to implement the complete solution. The complex task consisted of:
– Plan the upgrade of core segments in PE NB’s MW network,
– Plan and deploy new MW Access network
– Carefully tailor and adjust the existing PE NB’s transmission network optimized for linear TV/Audio services to accommodate services used by MARnet

The project was successfully realized with both MARnet expanding their network on robust and protected platform and PE National Broadcasting gaining from additional capacity that can be used in transmission backup scenarios