Informal tavern meetings lead to consortium for fast Internet2
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Thu, Nov 20 1997)
In a few years, when you're browsing the Internet at speeds up to 100
times faster than today's standard, you can thank a couple of
beer-drinking university techies for the extra zip.
The idea of Internet2 - a collaborative effort by many universities to
develop a faster, more advanced network - was first batted around in a
place where brainstorming is often done: in a tavern.
Technology officers from major research universities would run into
one another at national conferences and exchange Internet war stories,
says Tad Pinkerton, deputy information technology Officer at the
University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Each person would have a tale to tell about how their research was
hindered by the crowded Internet.
A new and improved Internet needed to be developed, they decided - not
only for university researchers, for also for consumers.
"In the very first meetings, there were groups of four or five of us,"
Pinkerton said. "We would get together after meetings. It might have
been at a bar at the end of the day when we talked about it."
In October, the casual discussion turned into an official announcement
that an Internet2 consortium was formed - a group of universities
dedicated to upgrading the Net for the public, as well as to creating a
more efficient network for academic research.
The interest in Internet2 was far greater than expected, said Donald
Riley, director of the University of Minnesota Office of Information
Technology.
"We were hoping we might get a dozen universities willing to commit,"
he said. "Each campus is committed to roughly a half-million dollars a
year in expenditures."
For that reason, they were surprised that 34 schools signed up. And
since October 1996, that number has grown to 112.
"It's turned into a party that schools don't want to miss," said Michael M.
Roberts, Internet2 project director.
The Internet2 leaders spelled out three goals that they hope to achieve
by early next decade:
- Provide the research community with a faster network.
- Develop a new generation of applications that will take advantage of
the fast network.
- Eventually share those new network services and applications with the
broader Internet community.
"With the Internet today, we've built the local roads and state highways,"
University of Minnesota's Riley said. "What we need to do now is build
the interstate systems - something that's really going to have the
capacity to meet our needs."
He said he's heard technology czars echo the same complaints in recent
years.
"The universities have said, 'We're getting Internet brownouts, we can't
do video conferencing, and the telcos don't seem to care because they're
busy connecting everybody and making money.' "
The first part of the Internet2 initiative - providing a new, faster network
for researchers - has already become reality for many schools.
The University of Minnesota and 11 other schools already have their
connections to the faster network that will be used to develop new
Internet2 applications.
By next year's end, the 100 leading research universities, all Internet2
members, will have the ultrafast connections.
Seeing the University of Minnesota's connection upgraded Oct. 10 to 40
times its previous speed was a glorious moment for University of
Minnesota astronomy Professor Paul Woodward.
"I remember it well," he said, laughing. "We're delighted with this factor
of 40, but it's still not enough. We want more."
And he will get it.
The National Science Foundation's very high performance Backbone
Network Service (vBNS) provides the Internet2 connection, and it can
transmit as many as 622 million bits per second, compared with the
average home modem's 28,800 bits per second.
The MCI-built fiber-optic vBNS will eventually be able to transmit 2.4
billion bits per second.
The expected faster public network resulting from Internet2 research is
expected to allow for digital libraries that feature streaming
high-fidelity audio and video content, and to give way to telemedicine,
including remote diagnosis and monitoring,
By the end of 1998, 100 leading research universities and Internet2
members will be connected to the NSF network, which has been
described as a sneak preview of the future.
"This is a private network - an intranet, in a sense," the University of
Wisconsin's Pinkerton said.
And its membership is expensive.
Although the National Science Foundation is awarding two-year
matching grants of $350,000 to help schools connect to the MCI-NSF
network and build a campus infrastructure, each institution is expected
to assist in paying the $50 million annual Internet2 project tab.
Several public companies, including IBM, 3Com Corp. and Cisco
Systems, have also committed nearly $5 million as Internet2 partners.
Clearly, the vendors want to be close to the developments so they can
see how to capitalize on the next-generation Internet.
The University of Wisconsin's Pinkerton said the NSF and academic
institutions are trying to improve on what they originally built.
He said the Internet went through one cycle, from research to
commercialization.
"Internet2 is the second loop," Pinkerton said. "We're going to start and
do this all over again." Copyright 1997, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All rights
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