INTERNET II
Internet 11 now knows how to make the money.
National LambdaRail, Partners Awarded $62 Million BTOP Grant to
Interconnect Community Anchors with Advanced Broadband
Research and Education to Benefit from 100 Gbps Upgrade to NLR
Backbone, Additional Fiber Routes .
Today the National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA) awarded $62 million in federal stimulus funding to National
LambdaRail (NLR), Internet2, the Northern Tier Network Consortium
and the Indiana University Global Research Network Operations Center
(GRNOC) to interconnect schools, libraries, healthcare providers,
public safety agencies and other "community anchors" across the
country with advanced broadband.
"National LambdaRail and our members and partners in the research
and education networking community already have 15 years collective
experience serving community anchors, as well as an extensive,
advanced network footprint and expertise managing next-generation
broadband applications like telepresence," said Glenn Ricart,
president and CEO, National LambdaRail. "U.S. UCAN is an historic
opportunity for the research and education community to work
together and to extend broadband capabilities beyond the 66,000
anchors we are already serving, to all interested anchor
organizations coast to coast."
Cisco also made a significant contribution to the success of the
proposal and will be providing state of the art networking equipment
and other assistance to help ensure leading-edge capabilities are in
place to support the most advanced needs of the community anchors.
The grant, awarded under the Broadband Technology Opportunities
Program (BTOP), will enable NLR to upgrade its infrastructure with a
new, 100Gbps backbone to serve research and education (R&E) as
well as the broader anchor community. In addition, all routers on
NLRs Layer 3, PacketNet network will be upgraded, reducing the costs
of connecting to NLRs network as well as doubling the number of
places where NLR can connect to its members and customers. Access to
additional fiber optic routes will enable greater participation by
the R&E community and other community anchors in NLR services;
the routes will also provide additional alternate routes to help
minimize downtime. For example, a new Dallas to Nashville route will
provide in-land fiber optic connectivity in the South that is not as
prone to possible hurricane damage. New fiber optic paths in the
Northeast will give NLR greater capacity to serve institutions in
that part of the country.
To extend the reach of R&E networks to all approximately 200,000
community anchors in the country while ensuring that R&E
governance remains focused on R&E, NLR and its partners will be
forming a non-profit organization, the U.S. Unified Community Anchor
Network (U.S. UCAN), to provide the coordination needed, in
collaboration with community anchor organizations, to serve the
expanded set of anchor institutions. NLRs member regional optical
networks (RONs) will continue to play the role they have so
successfully in the past, as the local connectors, under U.S. UCAN.
With regard to timeframe, the NTIA requires infrastructure projects
to be substantially completed in the first two years of funding (2nd
half 2010 through 1st half of 2012), with some work allowed in to
the third year. With NTIA funding being awarded in July, 2010, major
elements of the upgrade could be online by late 2010, with
completion of final components in 2013.
More information on U.S. UCAN can be found at
www.usucan.org
Questions specific to NLR may be sent to info@nlr.net
U.S. UCAN release:
http://www.nlr.net/release.php?id=62
Contact NLR
We welcome your questions and feedback. Contact us at
editor@nlr.net.
To learn more about National LambdaRail, visit
www.nlr.net
.
National LambdaRail (NLR)
P.O. Box 1610, Cypress, CA 90630
www.nlr.net
4/2007 data-transfer rate to 9.08 gigabits per second. That figure comes pretty close to Abilene's theoretical limit of 10 gigabits per second. A group of researchers led by the University of Tokyo has broken Internet speed records — twice in two days. Operators of the high-speed Internet2 network announced Tuesday that the researchers on Dec. 30 sent data at 7.67 gigabits per second, using standard communications protocols.The next day, using modified protocols, the team broke the record again by sending data over the same 20,000-mile path at 9.08 Gbps. That likely represents the current network's final record because rules require a 10 percent improvement for recognition, a percentage that would bring the next record right at the Internet2's current theoretical limit of 10 Gbps. However, the Internet2 consortium is planning to build a new network with a capacity of 100 Gbps. With the 10-fold increase, a high-quality version of the movie "The Matrix" could be sent in a few seconds rather than half a minute over the current Internet2 and two days over a typical home broadband line. [ 1 ]
2007 The latest twist in this soap opera between the two organizations issued an update on merger talks that were apparently and very quietly rekindled last month after an acrimonious split late last year.
"
After Breaking Off Talks, 2 High-Speed Networking Consortia Now
Say They Will Merge
"
Almost a year ago two consortia that run high-speed computer
networks for researchers scotched plans to merge, announcing that
they were unable to find common ground on a host of organizational
issues. But now the two groups -- Internet2 and National LambdaRail
-- say the merger is back on. The governing boards of both groups
agreed earlier this month to a complete a "definitive agreement to
merge" by April 20, according to a
statement signed by Jeffrey S. Lehman, the chair of Internet2, and
Tracy Futhey, the chair of LambdaRail. If all goes as planned, the
two consortia will become one by the end of June.
IPv6 hasn't exactly caught on - even with v6 IP space around and available for the asking. Ask your ISP for it, lots of ISPs offer it - or get it from a tunnel provider like sixxs.net or tunnelbroker.net .. or if you need a rather larger block of v6 addresses - though a /48 has a huge number of IPs all by itself - ask APNIC, RIPE, ARIN etc - you'll get it. Without much trouble at all. Though v6 is - again - available for the asking, and just about every modern operating system from Windows XP on, has a ipv6 stack, does hotmail, or yahoo, have a v6 address? Do their chinese equivalents like (say) sina.com, have v6 addresses? NO.
2006
National LambdaRail is dead. Abilene shuts down in October 2007. Internet2's will replace Abilene high-speed network with "Newnet" in 1 year which will carry data on 10 different wavelengths of light, each of which could handle 10 gigabits of data per second.Faulkner and Van Houweling said that academe would benefit if a single organization were to provide high-speed networking to colleges and called upon university presidents to use "presidential power to forge a consensus with consequences." Internet2 would not own the fiber-optic links in Newnet but the consortium's contract with the telecommunications company would give Internet2 the right to "operational control" of the network. That arrangement would make sure that the network was run in researchers' interest while freeing Internet2 from tending to more-mundane matters such as repairs of broken fiber cables. Institutions connected to the new network would have access to one light wavelength that, like Abilene, would carry conventional Internet traffic, he said. Each institution also would have access to a second wavelength that could be used however the institution desired, or even subdivided for multiple uses, he said. Douglas E. Van Houweling , the president of Internet2, declined to describe the sticking point in the negotiations. Houweling was also associated with Educause / Educom
2006 RUCKUS MOVES TO NEW BUSINESS MODEL
- Music and video download company Ruckus Network is dropping its
subscription model for an ad-based model and has announced a deal
with Internet2 to distribute content over its high-speed network.
Ruckus was not able to attract significant numbers of subscribers
under its old plan. Campuses that sign up for Ruckus's new service
will pay only minor marketing fees, rather than a per-student
subscription fee. Officials at
Ruckus
hope that by partnering with Internet2, the company will be seen as
a provider of academic materials rather than just entertainment,
similar to a change made at
Cdigix
, another company created to provide legal downloads to college
students.
Nearly 30 institutions are currently clients of Ruckus and members
of Internet2
. Faculty at those institutions will be able to use the Internet2
network to share course materials with students. Ruckus, which has
joined Internet2 as a corporate member, will also use Internet2's
network to develop "new content-distribution and authentication
technologies," according to Lauren Rotman, media-relations manager
for Internet2.
Napster, Ruckus and Cdigix
William M. Mahon III, a spokesman for Pennsylvania State
University
, said the court's ruling would have no impact there. Penn State was
one of the first universities to sign a deal with Napster, enabling
students to listen to a large selection of music legally and at no
cost. They must pay per-song fees, however, to download music
permanently. Penn State students will have access to Napster as part
of tuition. Normal subscription rates are $9.99 a month.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 September 2005
The Recording Industry Association of America (
RIAA
) and the Motion Picture Association of America (
MPA
A) have become corporate members of Internet2, joining companies
including the Ford Motor Company and C-Span. "
Internet2
is a stepping stone between the research lab and the commercial
sector," said Lauren Kallens, a spokesperson for the organization.
Earlier this year, the entertainment groups sued hundreds of Abilene
users for using the network to illegally trade files, but, according
to Gayle Osterberg, a spokesperson for the
MPAA
, the groups' membership in
Internet2
is unrelated to their antipiracy efforts. "This particular
partnership," she said, "is more of an opportunity for us to have a
technology testing ground." The groups plan to collaborate with the
Internet2
community to study distribution and digital rights management
technologies for networks faster than today's commercial Internet.
(notice the ® being used - it's the first time I've seen this 5/05)
U.S. and Foreign Universities Use Internet2's Advanced Network and
Real Time Video-Conferencing to Form an Online, Global Classroom
http://tinyurl.com/brst9
Using
Internet2®'s
advanced high-performance network and Apple technology with Access
Grid video software, a team of Drexel University students is sharing
virtual classroom space with student teams at eight universities in
four countries and five states. The teams are working together to
create media files for
Descent to the Underworld,
a new Game-Film ® project created and produced by Druid Media. The
bleeding-edge project models the next generation of collaboration,
not only for education, but also for the corporate sector. The
Internet2 community's high-performance network provides users 100 to
1,000 times more bandwidth than traditional broadband; the Access
Grid software enables real-time, TV-quality video and audio on
multiple screens. Together the two technologies create an immersive
“in-the-same-room” environment. <snip>
RIAA to Sue Internet2 Users
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111332296709604743,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Hundreds of College Students Accused
Of Using Research Network to Swap Songs
Associated Press April 12, 2005 12:57 p.m.
The recording industry intends to sue hundreds of college students
accused of illegally distributing music and movies across
Internet2
, the super-fast computer network connecting leading universities
for researching the next generation of the Internet, industry
officials said Tuesday.
The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America, the
trade group for the largest labels, said it will file federal
copyright lawsuits Wednesday against 405 students at 18 colleges
with access to the
Internet2
network, which boasts speeds hundreds of times faster than the
Internet.
Researchers at
Internet2
once demonstrated they can download a DVD-quality copy of the
popular movie "The Matrix" in 30 seconds over their network, a feat
they said would take roughly 25 hours over the Internet.
Internet2 is used by several million university students,
researchers and professionals around the world but is generally
inaccessible to the public.
"We don't condone or support illegal file-sharing," said
Internet2
's chief executive, Doug Van Houweling. "We've always understood
that just like there is a lot of file-sharing going on on the public
Internet, there's also some file-sharing going on on
Internet2
."
The recording industry said some students were illegally sharing
across
Internet2
as many as 13,600 music files -- far more than most Internet users
-- and that the average number of songs offered illegally by the
students was 2,300 each. It said it found evidence of more illegal
file-sharing at 140 more schools in 41 states and sent warning
letters to university presidents.
"We cannot let this high-speed network become a zone of lawlessness
where the normal rules don't apply," said Cary Sherman, president of
the recording association.
The Motion Picture Association of America also was expected to file
federal copyright lawsuits Wednesday against college students with
access to
Internet2
.
"The high performance of
Internet2
makes it attractive for a lot of applications, not just
file-sharing," Mr. Van Houweling said. He cautioned universities
against filtering data to block illegal activity in ways that would
slow the research network's performance.
"It's possible to attack this problem in ways that do compromise the
performance," he said.<snip>
Penn State and Internet2 Announce Release of Academic
File-sharing Open Source Code
AUSTIN, TX - September 28, 2004 - Plans for secure, high-powered,
peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technology for academia has come one
big step closer to fruition when today Penn State and Internet2(R)
announced the release of open source code for their collaborative
software project, LionShare.
Funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, LionShare
merges electronic file-exchange capabilities with information
gathering tools into one dynamic application.
Gary Augustson, Penn State's vice provost for information technology
said, This is a technology that promises to significantly improve
the way institutions collaborate and support each other's academic
endeavors, while simultaneously ensuring a secure authenticated
computing environment for researchers who use its file-sharing
capabilities."
This week's LionShare source code release will provide all
interested programmers and developers with the opportunity to
contribute valuable feedback and suggestions. At the same time,
Lionshare partners including: Internet2, Simon Fraser University of
Canada; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will continue
to fine-tune the project software which is slated for official beta
release for universities and institutions this upcoming January.
"We knew we had something special here, but there was no way we
could have anticipated the enthusiasm that LionShare has generated,
commented Michael Halm, the project's lead architect and manager.
"Organizations from around the world have contacted us with
questions about the technology and requests for the open source code
release date, and many groups have expressed interest in
collaboration. We're pleased that the code is now available."
Several educational and research institutions have expressed
interest in Lionshares unique capabilities for resource exchange -
including its ability to transfer audio, video, scientific
simulations, text, documents, research papers, Web resources and a
variety of other learning activities.
LionShare has enormous potential," remarked Loukas Kalisperis,
professor of architecture at Penn State. "With this single
application, collaborating faculty can build digital repositories
such as 3-D architectural image collections, Web-based video
archives and art collections. Faculty will also have a range of
tools at their fingertips for managing and exchanging their own
personal collections, in addition to having access to large-scale
data repositories throughout the United States and Europe."
Kalisperis is among a number of scholars and scientists who have
offered their suggestions to team members as project plans unfolded
this past year. Feedback from faculty at Penn State and other
institutions is enabling developers to enhance the software's
features with cutting-edge security, authentication, and password
handling capabilities - plus a high performance text search engine
and a technology (developed by Simon Fraser) that will make secure,
single-search inquiries of certain worldwide digital repositories
possible.
The continual dialogue with developers and potential network users
has significantly furthered the development of the technology.
"With the source code release on September 30, interested
programmers and application developers can now access the code to
use and/or modify for their needs and specifications, added Halm.
Feedback from programmers, as well as our peer institutions, will be
essential in our efforts to further the development of the software.
These efforts will culminate in the launch of an academic
file-sharing network that researchers will be able to test and use
this January."
To learn more about LionShare and to access the new open source code
- or to join the developers community, go to
http://lionshare.its.psu.edu/main/
.
About LionShare
The LionShare project, funded by Andrew W. Mellon, is a
collaboration between Penn State and partner organizations including
Internet2
; Simon Fraser University of Canada; and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology's Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI). The LionShare
project grew out of VIUS (Visual Image User Study), an experimental
software development project designed to assist Penn State
University faculty with digital file management.
LambdaRail Fiber-Optic Network Gains 6 New Members, Enough to Go
National
http://chronicle.com/free/2004/06/2004060301n.htm
A consortium of research universities that is creating an
$80-million fiber-optic computer network announced on Wednesday that
it had added six members, enough to extend the network to most
portions of the country.
The system, called the National LambdaRail, initially will operate
four separate national computer networks, each with a capacity equal
to the most powerful national research network now in operation, the
Abilene network operated by the
Internet2
organization. LambdaRail will accomplish that feat by transmitting
data over four different wavelengths of light. Each wavelength will
be able to carry as much data as Abilene, and the fiber-optic
network eventually could offer 40 such wavelengths.
The consortium of research universities owns the LambaRail network.
Other research networks, like Abilene, instead have used leased
telecommunications lines. Thomas W. West, president and chief
executive of National LambdaRail, said groups of scholars -- like
physicists around the world who want to collaborate with one another
-- eventually may be able to lease wavelengths for their own use.
LambdaRail is being constructed from unused fiber-optic lines sold
or donated by telecommunications companies and network equipment
sold to the consortium at a steep discount by Cisco Systems Inc., an
Internet-network company.
The consortium is selecting its network links according to the
locations of its members, which must each pay $5-million over five
years. "We're sort of following the money," said Mr. West.
Since the first segment of the network, running from Pittsburgh to
Chicago, became operational, in November, the network has added
service to several other cities, including Atlanta; Portland, Ore.;
Raleigh, N.C.; Seattle; Sunnyvale, Calif.; and Washington. The
network is scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2005.
Four of the new members are consortia or state education bodies: the
Louisiana Board of Regents, the Oklahoma State Board of Regents, the
Texas Lonestar Education and Research Network, and the University
Corporation for Atmospheric Research. The latter group will provide
connections for institutions in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
The other two new members are individual institutions: Cornell
University and the University of New Mexico.
Officials at Cornell hope to share their connection -- and its cost
-- with other institutions. Other colleges in New York and New
England, and computer networks serving those regions, were unable to
find the funds to join LambdaRail on their own, said Polley Ann
McClure, Cornell's chief information officer. But with Cornell's
having made the upfront commitment, the others avoid having to
commit the full $5-million, making it cheaper for them to join, she
said.
With enough partners, Cornell's cost could drop to $100,000
annually, she said. Cornell will save at least that amount from
other savings on its network costs, made possible by routing some of
its Internet traffic along the same fiber-optic line that will
connect the Ithaca campus with National LambdaRail's facility in New
York City.
STUDENT FILE-SWAPPERS GO INTO OVERDRIVE ON INTERNET2
(CNet News.com 29 Apr 2004)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5202107.html
Internet2, the high-speed network designed to facilitate scholarly
collaboration among university researchers, has spawned a new
turbo-charged file-trading network dubbed i2hub. The network has
drawn rave reviews from students dazzled by its blazing speed, but
some Internet2 denizens see trouble brewing ahead. And while
students maintain they're only making use of bandwidth that
otherwise would go begging, some also see it as a way to circumvent
the limitations that some universities have imposed on peer-to-peer
networking. "Some universities put a restriction on commodity
Internet line speeds but don't put any restriction on Internet2,"
says one i2hub manager, who estimates students at about 100
universities are making use of the network. Officials at Internet2
say theoretically they have no objection to the students' use of the
network, providing no copyright violations are occurring, but some
university network administrators have expressed concern that that's
exactly what is happening. "Internet2 is for research. It's not for
downloading music. The fact is, (the network) cost a lot of money
and downloading games and music should be the last priority on any
campus network. I think it's borderline taking advantage of the
system," says a computer support specialist at Florida State
University.
Internet2: File Swapping Haven? 2004 --
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?&story_id=23903
In response to the music industry's efforts to curb digital piracy
on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, many college students have begun
trading files over Internet2, also known as i2hub, the high-speed
network used by universities and technology companies to transmit
data at speeds up to 10,000 times faster than the typical broadband
connection. Universities have started working with music and movie
companies to limit trading over campus networks, whether by limiting
bandwidth or denying access to individual students. Internet2 uses
advanced network technology to provide such services as television
quality video-conferencing and access to grid computing and
supercomputers, which the Internet cannot support. NeoModus has
developed Direct Connect, a P2P system designed to exploit
Internet2's high capacity. However,
Internet2'
s Greg Wood notes that the architecture of
i2hub
would allow colleges to restrict P2P traffic on the campus level.
Internet2 Spin is required to show some token effort at the public
school level July 10, 2001
see:
http://www.internet2.edu/
and http://www.technologyreview.com/web/tynan/tynan071001.asp
"To join
Internet2
, you must be an educational institution or private firm willing to
use the network to collaborate and support the development of new
applications. Annual costs run between
$500,000 and $1 million per university, according to Internet2
spokesperson Greg Wood, most of it going toward upgrading campus
networks.
" "We're not in it for altruism," says Stephen Wolff, manager of
business development for Cisco in Washington, DC. "It costs us
something to participate in
Internet2
, and we hope to regain that and more by translating the technology
into products people will want to buy."
CAMPUSES MAKING ADVANCES WITH INTERNET2
(Philadelphia Inquirer, 2000 July 13)
Universities involved in the
Internet2
project, a test-bed for advanced applications, are experimenting
with technologies such as virtual reality and distance medicine that
would be impossible on the commercial Internet. The University of
Pennsylvania, is creating an integrated database for digital
mammograms allowing doctors to view a patient's mammogram taken
years earlier in a different city. At Northwestern, researchers this
summer expect to launch a technology that will allow students to
view high-quality videos of professors' lectures from PCs in their
dorm rooms. Meanwhile, several Internet2 universities have teamed
with the National Tele-Immersion Initiative to develop virtual
reality tools that would allow professors wearing 3D goggles to take
part in roundtable discussions with colleagues around the world.
INTERNET2 TEAM SEEKS SPEEDY APPS From Edupage, 23
February 2000 (PC World Online, 22 Feb 2000)
The
Internet2 consortium
is hosting a Land Speed Record competition "for the most demanding
end-to-end, bandwidth intensive Internet applications in the world,"
with winners to be announced March 29. The winning application will
transmit the most bits the greatest distance, says Internet2's Greg
Wood. Data-intensive applications, such as programs that transmit
terabytes of data or HDTV, are likely winners. Eventually,
Internet2
might enable tele-immersion applications that would let holographic
images of people interact in a virtual space, Wood says. Four
universities have formed the National Tele-Immersion Initiative to
help make this technology a reality, and the group is now working on
a way to send 3D data over two-way Internet links. Another
university group called the Research Channel has already used
Internet2 to send high-quality video. Last November the Research
Channel used Internet2 to transmit five simultaneous
HDTV streams that totaled 1 Gbps, says the group's Amy Philipson.
Firm to Give Research Schools Super-Fast Computer Services April
1998
Source: Washington Post (C5)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-04/14/078l-041498-idx.html>
Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran Issue: Corporate Philanthropy
Description:
Qwest Communications will provide $500 million worth of
transmission services to a computer network that is to connect a
consortium of research universities working on a project called
"Internet2"
at 1,000 times faster than commercial Internet, according to senior
White House and academic officials familiar with the plan. The
consortium's project is a component of the Clinton administration's
Next Generation Internet Initiative, which aims to connect several
national labs and universities with a super-fast network by the year
2000. Qwest said it has completed a third of a $1.8 billion,
16,000-mile national data network on which it will carry commercial
customers and Internet2.
Va. to Offer 1st Access to Internet2 Source: Washington Post
5/5/98 (D12) Author: Frank Swoboda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-05/05/063l-050598-idx.html
Officials announced Monday that
the nation's first access point to Internet2
, a high-speed computer network, will be opened in theWashington
area this fall by a consortium of local universities and
corporations. The project, to be formally announced tomorrow, will
be called Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX).
Universities at work to build faster Internet 2
http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/100597/info15_23638_noframes.html
Nando.net Mon, 6 Oct 1997 The Associated Press
Victor Sparrow makes sound waves dance on a computer screen to teach
acoustics engineering to his Pennsylvania State University students,
but he can't splash his fancy images beyond his office. Today's
congested and outdated Internet also gives Sparrow trouble bringing
in teaching tools developed by his peers at other campuses. So like
other researchers eager to find better ways to share their
knowledge, he looks forward to Internet 2, a faster computer network
that 112 universities are working on. Internet 2's enhanced voice,
video and data capabilities are being unveiled at a demonstration
this week in Washington. "In acoustics, many things have to do with
(sound) waves," Sparrow said from Penn State. "Waves move, and ...
currently with the Internet, it's hard to do real-time animation."
The problems stem largely from the very nature of the Internet and
its growing commercial popularity. Computer files travel across the
Internet as equals. A video clip needed in a classroom right now
commands the same attention as an electronic message likely to
languish in the recipient's mailbox for hours or days. Back when
Internet use was limited primarily to government and academia, the
network had plenty of capacity to go around. Handling information
that way was fine. These days, with more business and residential
users connected, researchers face delays that affect their work.
"Universities which were at the heart of the original Internet now
are finding themselves competing for space on this network," said
David Katz, global education industry manager at 3Com Corp., a Santa
Clara, Calif., company helping schools develop Internet 2. The
Internet restricts Sparrow's demonstrations of wave properties to
simple computer drawings akin to stick figures. Connections are not
good enough to produce complex teaching aides without unpredictable
delays, Sparrow said. Internet 2 seeks to fix that by improving
computer connections among and within campuses and by developing
ways to sort and prioritize information to allow real-time video
presentations to cruise past less-urgent e-mail on the information
superhighway.
The ultimate goal is to create a network that researchers could
rely on to obtain the high-volume computer files they need when
they need them
. Professors could effectively reserve network capacity. With
blazing connections, capable of transmitting the contents of the
Library of Congress in half a day instead of a month as now,
researchers on opposite coasts could observe a computer simulation
or a medical chart together and discuss on-screen changes as they
happened. The same connections could let the most powerful computers
at different locations work together to solve a single problem, such
as predicting the behavior of advanced rocket engines. Such complex
calculations would eliminate some of the trial-and-error
experimentation now required. The Indiana University Music Library
is eyeing Internet 2 to broaden its music collection. With the
current network, six or seven people listening to music at once
would consume the school's entire capacity, said Jon Dunn, a
technical director at the library. "There are recordings unique to a
particular library, and making those (electronically) available"
expands the number of people who can listen to them at once, Dunn
said. Each participating university has committed at least $2.5
million over five years to upgrade their equipment. The National
Science Foundation is financing much of the major intercampus
wiring. About two dozen schools are to be linked by year's end, with
the remaining connections expected within five years.
Organizers say Internet 2 would help fulfill President Clinton's
$100 million-a-year initiative to improve Internet links for
government agencies, national laboratories and research
institutions.
Eventually, concepts developed by Internet 2 could become
commercially viable, at which point universities would begin working
on a successor, said
J. Gary Augustson, a computer director at Penn State and chairman
of the Internet 2 steering committee. "If we're successful,"
Augustson said, "Internet 2 will be cluttered, and we'll probably
go to Internet 3.