Internet2 gaining 'sponsored' users

TROY, N.Y. - High-speed nationwide Internet2, which runs parallel to the Internet to give research universities uncluttered access to bandwidth-gobbling applications and technologies, is opening its doors a little wider.

During the past year, Internet2 has welcomed users to its network, thanks to a program called Sponsored Education Group Participation (SEGP). States that institute SEGP open their links into Internet2 to schools, libraries, hospitals, cultural organizations and research companies in their area that need access to the high-speed network for data-heavy applications and collaborative projects. Organizations that wish to tap into the network through SEGP must be sponsored by an Internet2 member.

In the past, smaller users such as K-12 schools and hospitals could not afford the cost of hooking into the Internet2 backbone. With SEGP, Internet2 is made affordable because the cost of hooking into the network is distributed across the SEGP participants. The cost structure is complicated, however, and each state's fees are different. Jim Brennan, director of external programs at New York State Education and Research Network (NYSERNet), which recently opened its regional network to the SEGP program, says users in New York will pay fees ranging from $25,000 to $125, 000 per year.

Gary Bachula, vice president for external relations at Internet2, says he expected about 10 to 15 states to join the SEGP program in the first couple of years. Already, about 24 states have joined the program and more are expected to follow soon. "The response has been dramatic," he says.

Internet2 is actually the name of the nonprofit consortium led by 190 top research universities that are working with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies to boost the performance of the "next-generation" Internet. The network consists of a national backbone, which peers with networks being run globally by organizations similar to Internet2.

Internet2's national backbone is called Abilene, a Qwest OC-48 (2.4G bit/sec) fiber-optic network. The network was developed through a collaboration of Cisco, Juniper Networks, Nortel and Qwest. The Abilene network operations center is located at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Abilene connects regional network aggregation points, called gigaPoPs, which are managed by regional organizations such as NYSERNet.

Columbia University in New York is one of the founding members of NYSERNet and Internet2. Vace Kundakci, deputy vice president for academic information systems, says Columbia hooked into Internet2 initially for research purposes.

"But in general the way we did it was opening it up so that every user at the university would use it as long as the destination for that network traffic was another Internet2 institution. Even student e-mail from Columbia to Stanford goes over Internet2," he says. "So we benefit from having an almost private network dedicated for educational and research use."

Internet2 is especially useful for video applications, Kundakci says. For example, a conductor in Oklahoma, or even Canada, can conduct a master's music class at the Columbia campus via video over the Internet2 network. Other applications being deployed on Internet2 include multinational research on high-energy physics, astronomy work, weather forecasting and healthcare information sharing. Corporations including Fujitsu Labs, IBM, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson also connect to Internet2.

Kundakci says he's happy to see Internet2 opening the network to more organizations. "It's very appropriate," he says. "The bandwidth is there."

RELATED LINKS