‘Software-configurable’ EPB Quantum Network open for subscriptions
Chattanooga, Tennessee, broadband provider EPB and its partners Qubitekk and Aliro Quantum announced this week that the EPB Quantum Network, “the nation’s only software-configurable quantum network,” is now open to customers.
The news comes after EPB and Qubitekk, who have been work on the network for some time, incorporated Aliro’s AliroNet entanglement-based quantum network controller to enable users to define parameters for a range of network configurations they need to build, test, validate, characterize and run their communications and quantum products.
Qubitekk President, CTO and Co-Founder Dr. Duncan Earl said during a brief presentation at this week’s Quantum World Congress that the announcement signifies an opportunity for quantum developers in research, academia, and industries to move their applications out of the lab environment and into the real world. “This is a commercial quantum network that’s really going to be a destination for developers of quantum products and quantum solutions,” he said. “They can come and use this network to test, to validate, to characterize, and to run some of the different quantum applications that you can run on a quantum network.”
He added, “Nowhere else do you have a commercial network that people can subscribe to… This managed network creates capabilities that others really have not had before. Just to highlight some of these, there are over 300 diagnostic data points that are taken on this network every second and logged by EPB… This system is really about allowing people to test new products in communications and quantum computing and quantum sensing, and the network has the flexibility to meet the needs of all of those different types of applications.”
Aliro Quantum CEO and Chairman Jim Ricotta, said of Aliro’s role, “Our team is unique in that we have quantum physicists, but we also have many people on our team, including myself, who have built networking products at Cisco Systems and other network giants. We know how the classical internet scaled from the basics in labs to what we have today, and our vision is to do the same thing for quantum networking. So, what we’re doing at EPB with Qubitekk is bringing software defined networking to quantum. Our vision is to bring quantum networking, as well as quantum computing and quantum sensing, out of the lab and into commercial use where enterprises and government organizations and others, like researchers, can get the benefits of quantum communications.”
EPB did not discuss pricing for network subscriptions, and EPB President and CEO David Wade urged interested parties to contact the company for pricing information and to visit the network.
Dan O’Shea has covered telecommunications and related topics including semiconductors, sensors, retail systems, digital payments and quantum computing/technology for over 25 years.
