Distance, eliminated
How ARETE brought Rio de Janeiro research to CERN network standards, designing, supplying and sustaining the first 400 Gbps academic backbone with coherent optics in Brazil.
A backbone of more than 30 years facing the science of tomorrow.
Rede-Rio/FAPERJ connects more than 180 institutions of education, research and government, and for three decades has been the foundation of scientific connectivity in the state. But modern research changed the scale of the question: large data volumes, real-time remote experiments, collaboration between institutes and the start of quantum computing in the state. All of this pressured a backbone whose standard was 100 Gbps. The challenge was clear: modernize the backbone without inflating costs, and do it with technology prepared for the next decade, not just for today’s demand.
A counselor looks at the next decade, not the next purchase.
Here ARETE acted as counselor, not as supplier. Where 100 Gbps was the established standard, it proposed the leap: 400 Gbps with coherent optics, the same technology that moves frontier physics data in laboratories like CERN. It negotiated with Cisco to make cutting-edge technology accessible to public research. The question guiding the decision was not “what fits in scope,” but “what will Rio de Janeiro science need ten years from now.”
Five fronts, one single point of accountability.
ARETE designed the topology, supplied the equipment, integrated the coherent optics, sustains the operation and shaped the technical decision alongside the client. The project began in 2024 with a pilot, the first 400G metropolitan academic optical network in Brazil. The backbone is now operational. Connected institutions are migrating gradually, at the pace a new technology demands, and that is why the network’s own coordination speaks of a beginning: the backbone is already standing; the full body is still learning to use it.
The infrastructure disappears. Discovery appears.
Rio de Janeiro research reached the 400 Gbps coherent level, comparable to networks at the forefront of world knowledge. More than 180 institutions now count on a backbone prepared for the next decade of science, from genomics to quantum computing. Bandwidth, in the end, is time: time to the result, time to the next question no one has yet known to ask.
[DATA TBC: client testimonial, to be captured and validated in the video case]