The DANR Connect project is bringing high-speed network connectivity and Internet access to a large number of University of California Cooperative Extension and Research and Extension Centers throughout California. Fortunately, as part of the University of California and affiliated with state and county governments, we have access to existing network infrastructures. These enable us to leverage our resources and come up with a network far superior to anything we could create on our own or obtain commercially for the same price. Also, in a limited number of cases there may be an opportunity to connect directly into a UC campus system.
Frame relay is a high-speed data transmission technology.
Compared to other similar technologies it is low in cost, technically reliable, universally available in California, and has good performance. Being one of the largest telecommunications customers in the world, the government of California has used its purchasing power to negotiate low cost frame relay rates compared to what is available commercially. It is a high-speed network backbone using SMDS technology. There is a router at each campus that connects the individual campus network with UCNet. UCOP operates UCNet and the UCNet routers.