Brasília, February 25, 2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) = The bidding process has already been concluded, the contracts with servers will be signed in March, and the CLARA (Latin American Advanced Network Cooperation) Net will begin operations in May. This affirmation was made by Nelson Simões, president of the CLARA and general director of the Ministry of Science and Technology's National Teaching and Research Network (RNP).

The CLARA is intended to create a high speed network uniting universities and research centers in at least 14 Latin American countries. The Latin American network will be inaugurated in May with the six countries that form the project's "spinal cord": Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, and Panama. Due to the speed of their networks, they were chosen as central points for other countries' connections.

"The other countries will be incorporated in the CLARA by July. We hope that more countries will join the network, which will provide effective and rapid exchange among researchers," Simões says. Through April, 2006, the CLARA project will receive financing from the European Union through the ALICE (Latin America Connected to Europe) program, which already permits high-speed (622 Mbps) connection between 18 Latin American countries and Europe.

This information was provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology. (DAS)