In 2009, with the publication of the Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy report, my Department identified the possibility of significant economic potential from first mover use of new types of flexible networking technology in a research context. To this end it put in place the first phase of the Exemplar programme, a test bed facility based on one such new and advanced Irish technology - Optical Packet Switching and Transport (OPST) from Intune Networks. This facility has been available for the development and testing of next generation services and has been accessible though the HEAnet academic network in Ireland, and via this to academic networks and their users elsewhere in Europe. The Test-bed has 14 industry partners and 8 academic research partners and has led to the creation of 50
new jobs in Ireland.
Under phase II of the Exemplar programme, my Department is examining whether a research support platform, involving academic and industry researchers and including the OPST and other publicly funded research facilities, would stimulate increased cross-organisational research, formalise existing support mechanisms and provide a basis for better researcher-to-researcher networking in developing innovative ICT products and services. These might include Big Data services, analytics services and new cloud support services. My Department is also in discussions with HEAnet, in this context, with a view to using its extensive network to widen access to the test-bed. Phase 3 of the Exemplar Programme envisioned the development of a national smart communications infrastructure. The scale, scope, and breadth of this phase of the Exemplar programme will need to be set by private investors/funders.
