On December 8, 2023, SOI Asia Project collaborated with the research and education networks (RENs) community to support a joint live music session between the University of Philippines, Diliman (UPD) in Manila, and Keio University, Japan, at a 3,000km distance.
Tuguma, a music team at the UPD, College of Music, played Philipino music with Daniel Matthew Santos, a Filipino musician, playing guitar at Keio University (KEIO), Japan over a Research and Education Network (REN) backbone. Tuguma at the UPD played the Filipino Traditional Instrument “Tongatong” (Stamping Tube) and sang Filipino folk songs: Entay Ganaganasen, Dong Dong Ay and Itetem from the Cordillera regions of the Philippines, along with Daniel’s guitar playing at KEIO.
This performance demonstrated possible future collaborative activities among students and researchers in universities in the Philippines to the world, utilizing this high-speed and low-latency connectivity provided by RENs.
Both Tokyo and Manila sites used Yamaha’s Syncroom for audio communication. Network connectivity between the two sites is supported by SINET, GXP-TOKYO, ARENA-PAC, MAFFIN, and PREGINET, in addition to both University campus networks.
- SINET (Tokyo – KEIO) – an information and communication network built and operated by the National Institute of Informatics (NII)
- MAFFIN (Tokyo – Manila) – a high-performance research network built and operated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)
- ARENA-PAC (Tokyo – Manila via Guam) – a backbone network for research and education operated by WIDE Project
- PREGINET (Manila – UPD) – the only REN in the Philippines, which interconnects and catalyzes research among academic, government, and research institutions, established by the Department of Science and Technology Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI)
Through the cooperation of these RENs, we ensured that redundant routes between the two sites and achieved a resilient research and educational environment for future collaborations.
This session was also introduced at the 3rd Joint PREGINET and COARE Stakeholders’ Meeting on 13 December 2023 in Pasay City, Philippines.
