A celebration was held Wednesday to mark 25 years since a high-speed fibre-optic network connected hundred of public organizations in Waterloo Region. The Waterloo Region Education and Public Network (WREPnet) was created in 2000. Fibre-optics are thin strands of glass or plastic that sends information through light. The network allowed users to plug in and use the internet at any speed required. “It is an extremely fast network,” explained Chris Demers, the chief information officer for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB). “If you look at other regions and other city areas, they don’t have such a robust network.” Demers said WREPnet is the backbone of all information that travels through the region. Multiple organizations use the network, including WCDSB, the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB), the Region of Waterloo, the cities of Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge, as well as universities, schools and libraries. Wednesday’s event gave users a chance to connect in person. “We look at it as a real community of technical people,” said Demers. “We get together and we discuss common issues. We discuss technologies even outside of networking, like cyber security and artificial intelligence is a big thing that we’re talking about now.” The decision to create the network began back to 1998, according to WREPnet’s website. Prescient International Inc. built a similar educational network for the North York District School Board, then reached out to both the Catholic and public school boards in Waterloo Region. More than 380 organizations currently use WREPnet. “The network is extremely secure,” said Demers. “Every partner has a separate, tactical path, which cannot be crossed between them. So, any kind of information or private data, we have [on] multiple streams. For example, the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. We have a stream across the network just for students, we have a stream across the network just for administrative data, and every organization has the same thing.” Demers said WREPnet creates a cohesive community. “It brings our important public services together into one envelope and it also allows us to be a community of technical, security and infrastructure,” he explained, adding that it allows them to “communicate critical data between the different Waterloo Region partners and also with the rest of the world.”
