University of Lethbridge students and staff are enjoying a faster delivery of Internet content on campus, thanks to a new connection to Cybera's transit exchange service.

The transit exchange provides a connection to the Seattle Internet Exchange (SIX), which links to major Internet sites like Google, Microsoft and YouTube.

"This new connection to the SIX gives the university better route diversity, so if a disruption occurs with its regular Internet connection, traffic will continue to be directed to our transit exchange service for connection to major sites like Google," says Jean-Francois Amiot, Technical Operations Manager at Cybera. "This ensures a more consistent level of service for all students, staff and faculty."

When the service is operating normally, the Cybera transit exchange connection will also allow University users to bypass the regular queues en route to the SIX-connected sites.

This has already been demonstrated at the University of Alberta, which has been using Cybera to connect to the SIX since early January and, as a result, has seen a balance of its network traffic loads, as well as cost savings.

"This service is greatly enhancing the performance and delivery of classroom content and activities, as now we are able to offload a significant amount of traffic to Cybera," says Clark Ferguson, chief information officer at the U of L.

"Teaching and learning are the biggest beneficiaries. Professors can quickly link to speeches and lectures offered on sites such as YouTube with virtually no delay."

"Cybera is now carrying approximately 35-40 per cent of Internet traffic, which will have a long-term impact on reducing our costs," adds Ferguson. "This is a substantial improvement to our service and a huge step forward."

Looking ahead, Cybera is preparing to partner with CANARIE to establish a peering connection with the Toronto Internet Exchange.

Cybera's connection to the SIX is enabled by a partnership with BCNET - the advanced network in British Columbia. To use Cybera's transit exchange service, a connection to CyberaNet - the advanced network operated by Cybera - or to the Alberta SuperNet is required.