ALICE

To create a research networks infrastructure in Latin America and interconnect it with its European peer, GÉANT, by means of the internet protocol (IP).

DANTE (UK), Coordinator institutionEurope: RedIRIS (Spain), RENATER (France), GARR (Italy) and FCCN (Portugal).

Latin America: RETINA (Argentina), ADSIB (Bolivia), RNP (Brazil), REUNA (Chile), Universidad del Cauca (Colombia), CRnet (Costa Rica), RedUniv (Cuba), CEDIA (Ecuador), RAICES (El Salvador), RAGIE (Guatemala), UNITEC (Honduras), CUDI (México), CNU on behalf of RENIA (Nicaragua), RedCyT (Panama), ARANDU (Paraguay), RAP (Peru), RAU (Uruguay) and REACCIUN (Venezuela).

RedCLARA and its connection to GÉANT were executed by the ALICE project (América Latina Interconectada Con Europa – Latin America Interconnected with Europe), which main goal was to create a research networks infrastructure in Latin America and interconnect it with its European counterpart GÉANT through the Internet protocol (IP).

Within the @LIS Programme (European Commission – EuropAid Cooperation Office), in June 3rd 2003 the officers from the European Commission and the representatives from DANTE signed the contract that gave the starting point to ALICE. The contract signed by €12.5 million (€10 million – 80% funded by the European Commission, and €2,5 million – 20%, contributed by the Latin American partners) served for the creation of an infrastructure that connected the Latin American research networks at an intra-regional level, and interconnected them with the pan-European network GÉANT.

In order to achieve the ALICE Project objective, DANTE –institution in charge of GÉANT’s management- as part of its role as ALICE Project coordinator, associated in Europe with NREN from Spain (RedIRIS), France (RENATER), Italy (GARR) and Portugal (FCCN), and in Latin America ALICE associated with CLARA and with the NREN from the 18 countries whose participation was admitted by the regulations of the @LIS programme: RETINA (Argentina), ADSIB (Bolivia), RNP (Brazil), REUNA (Chile), University of the Cauca (Colombia), CRnet (Costa Rica), RedUniv (Cuba), CEDIA (Ecuador), RAICES (El Salvador), RAGIE (Guatemala), UNITEC (Honduras), CUDI (Mexico), CNU on behalf of RENIA (Nicaragua), RedCyT (Panama), ARANDU (Paraguay), RAP (Peru), RAU (Uruguay) and REACCIUN (Venezuela).

Initially ALICE was supposed to end in April of 2006, but the Project received two temporary extension authorizations (with the exact the budget of the contract signed in June 3rd, 2003) from the European Commission, hence its finalization was marked in March of 2008.