Connection Enables K20 Students Across the State to Participate in Leading-Edge Internet-Based Educational Opportunities

ANN ARBOR, Mich. and FAIRBANKS, Alaska – March 23, 2006 – Children across the state of Alaska will soon have access to one of the fastest networks in the world.

Representatives from Internet2 and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) today announced that Alaska’s statewide education network, AK20, will become the 35th state education network to connect directly to Internet2’s nationwide high performance network. Leveraging this connection, AK20 will participate in the Internet2 K20 Initiative which will give Alaska’s students access to cutting-edge, Internet-based educational opportunities not available today on the commercial Internet.

The announcement was made during a special ceremony held at UAF’s Internet2 Day. Participants included, Douglas Van Houweling, Internet2’s president and CEO; Louis Fox, Internet2’s director of the K20 Initiative; Steve Smith, UAF’s CIO; and Scott Christian, executive director of the Alaska Distance Education Consortium.

“Internet2 has worked diligently in partnership with University of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop to bring these leading-edge Internet capabilities to the Alaskan K20 community,” said Dr. Louis Fox, director, Internet2 K20 Initiative and vice provost, University of Washington. “Through this program, not only will thousands of Alaskan students and teachers be able to take part in the latest networking technology to collaborate and learn in new ways but in turn, they will help enrich their peers in the broader education community by sharing the rich traditions, diverse cultures and institutions that make up this unique region."

Through this connection, made possible through the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, teachers and students across Alaska will be able to participate in programs like Megaconference Jr., a project that uses advanced videoconferencing technology to bring together thousands of students in elementary and secondary schools from around the world for an all-day learning conference. Students can also receive live undersea exploration demonstrations from remote locations with famed oceanographer Bob Ballard, take master music classes from world-renowned instructors or use remote-controlled instruments to dissect a biology specimen from 1,000 miles away.

“UAF has a long tradition of providing our campus with the most advanced resources available and has served as the state’s hub for cutting-edge technology development,” said Steve Smith, UAF’s chief information officer. “By sponsoring the state’s K20 Initiative, we are extending next-generation capabilities to a community which would not otherwise have access to these valuable educational resources.”

AK20 connects hundreds of Alaska schools, libraries, community colleges and museums. Schools within urban areas such as Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau will connect via a fiber-optic network, while outlying rural areas will use satellite and digital microwave connections. While not all schools have sufficient bandwidth to take full advantage of Internet2’s network capabilities, AK20 is working with Alaska’s carriers to provide the highest bandwidth possible to these schools.

About Internet2
Led by more than 200 U.S. universities, working with industry and government, Internet2 develops and deploys advanced network applications and technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 recreates the partnerships among academia, industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy. For more information about Internet2, visit: http://www.internet2.edu/.

About the Internet2 Sponsored Educational Group Participant (SEGP) Program
The SEGP program is intended to allow expanded access to the Internet2 Abilene network for state and regional education networks, through sponsorship by Internet2 university members. State and regional networks may include nonprofit and for-profit K20 educational institutions, museums, libraries, art galleries, or hospitals that require routine collaboration on instructional, clinical and/or research projects, services and content with Internet2 members or with other sponsored participants. The program began in early 2001 and has since connected 35 state K20 networks.

About the University of Alaska Fairbanks
UAF is a Land, Sea and Space Grant institution with an enrollment of more than 9,000 students. Located 160 miles south of the Arctic Circle, UAF is the only doctoral degree granting institution in the state. Since it was founded in 1917, UAF has been internationally recognized for research relating to the Arctic and sub-arctic, in areas such as biology, geophysics, engineering, natural resources and global climate change. http://www.uaf.edu/

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop
The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNW Gigapop) is a not-for-profit serving leading edge organizations and Research and Education networks throughout the Pacific Rim. PNW Gigapop provides robust, highest-speed access to current state of the art Internet; Next Generation Internet services and technology; and the exclusive R&D testbeds where tomorrow’s Internet technologies are being developed. The PNW Gigapop is built to be the highest caliber Research and Education networking services hub in the world. http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/

CONTACT: 
Lauren Rotman
Internet2
lauren@internet2.edu
202.331.5345

Carla Browning
UAF
carla.browning@uaf.edu
(907) 474-7778

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) Circular is an occasional update of news for and about PNWGP and Pacific Wave participants. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this update service, send email to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net

In this Circular 004

PRICE REDUCTION ON COMMODITY INTERNET SERVICES
PNWGP UPGRADES COMMODITY INTERNET CIRCUITS
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA SETS INTERNET2 LAND SPEED RECORD
PACIFIC WAVE JOINS APAN
PACIFIC WAVE AND IPv6
NEW INTERNET ROUTING REGISTRY POLICY IN EFFECT OCTOBER 1
PNWGP EXPANDS PEERING RELATIONSHIPS
INTERNET2 FALL MEMBER MEETING IN LOS ANGELES OCTOBER 2002
CURRENT PNWGP AND PACIFIC WAVE PARTICIPANTS
UPDATING YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION
PNWGP CONTACT LIST

PRICE REDUCTION ON COMMODITY INTERNET SERVICES

Effective October 1, 2002, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop will reduce its fees for all commodity Internet services.

• Port fees for Abilene plus Commodity Internet Services will sink from $7990/mo to $5995/mo (Usage fees for this service remain at $275/Mbps)
• Usage fees for Commodity Internet Services will drop from $400/Mbps to $325/Mbps (Monthly port fees for this service remain unchanged at $2995/mo)

Additional savings are available to those organizations with monthly use levels regularly at or above 50Mbps.

There are three contributing factors to this decrease in PNWGP commodity service fees.

• The telecommunications industry shakeup of the past 18 months has
  resulted in a lowering of IP transit fees.
• The PNWGP has been an active member of The Quilt, a national collaboration of gigapops, and through The Quilt has been able to participate in some lower-cost aggregate IP transit purchases.
• An increase in peering relationships by the PNWGP has diverted some of the traffic that would have gone over commodity links through regional peering points.

To receive the PNWGP Service Catalog reflecting this new pricing, please send email to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net

PNWGP UPGRADES COMMODITY INTERNET CIRCUITS

The PNWGP estimates that the collective monthly commodity Internet bandwidth needs of its participants will reach 875Mbps by the end of this school year. To accommodate this growth, commodity Internet services for PNWGP have once again been expanded.

Last year, the PNWGP increased commodity Internet bandwidth from 445Mbps to 1.45Gbps. This year, the commodity capabilities have been expanded to 3Gbps. The new commodity services configuration provides unprecedented redundancy options, plus room to grow.

PNWGP will receive 1Gbps circuit from each of the following vendors: Level3, Verio, and Cable & Wireless. A failure or poor performance in any given circuit can easily be absorbed by the remaining two circuits. The new configuration also allows for simplified BGP configurations while continuing to offer optimal IP packet routes to and from the Internet.

In addition to retaining vendor diversity, these GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) commodity circuits are made at two geographically diverse connections at two separate nodes within Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. Some of the criteria used by the PNWGP in selection of IP transit providers are

National backbone
Seattle ingress/egress
Overall technical competence
Multicast service capability
BGP support
Significant peering with Tier One providers at multiple locations throughout the country
Response policies to security incidents
Engineering of their Point of Presence facilities
Backbone engineering
Corporate financial viability

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA SETS INTERNET2 LAND SPEED RECORD

Congratulations to the teams at the University of Alaska (led by Kerry Digou) and the University of Amsterdam (led by Erik-Jan Bos) who blasted the Internet2 Land Speed Record last May! 625Megabytes of data were transferred from Fairbanks to Amsterdam at a rate of 401 Mbps.

See the full press release at http://archives.internet2.edu/guest/archives/I2-NEWS/log200205/msg00003.html

PACIFIC WAVE JOINS APAN

In September, Pacific Wave was accepted as an affiliate member of the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN). This higher-profile role in the APAN community will help the PNWGP in structuring its Pacific Wave services to meet the diverse and changing needs of Pacific Rim research and education partners, some of which are already active today at Pacific Wave, including AARNet and TANET2. APAN itself is also a Pacific Wave participant today through TransPAC.

Pacific Wave hopes to use this opportunity to leverage large-scale research and education projects between our regions, particularly in the areas of the physical sciences and health care.

PACIFIC WAVE AND IPV6

PNWGP regularly receive inquiries about IPv6 capabilities at Pacific Wave. The Pacific Wave switch infrastructure is capable of passing IPv6 traffic so long as each of the peering parties supports IPv6 on their Pacific Wave connected routers.

NEW INTERNET ROUTING REGISTRY POLICY IN EFFECT OCTOBER 1, 2002

Technical contacts at all PNWGP commodity transit sites were notified a few weeks ago of the upcoming implementation of a new Internet Routing Registry Policy by the PNWGP. In order to assure that your commodity routes are effectively and efficiently propagated over the PNWGP commodity circuits, your site will need to abide by this new policy. The full text can be found at http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/tech/irr.html

PNWGP EXPANDS PEERING RELATIONSHIPS

In the past six months, PNWGP staff spent considerable resources aimed at 'keeping local traffic local.' By becoming an active peer at strategic locations, data not only reaches its destination more efficiently, but money is saved as well.

In May of this year, the PNWGP joined the Northwest Access Exchange (NWAX) in Portland, Oregon (see http://www.nwax.org).

In August, the PNWGP joined the Seattle Internet Exchange (SIX) in Seattle, Washington (see http://www.seattleix.net).

Additional peering opportunities will be opened within the next few weeks for Pacific Wave participants, as well as the PNWGP.

Approximately 200Mbps (monthly 95th percentile) is being transmitted through PNWGP peering relationships, exclusive of Pacific Wave. Total peering traffic through Pacific Wave runs at about 500Mbps (monthly 95th percentile).

INTERNET2 FALL MEETING IN LOS ANGELES OCTOBER 2002

Internet2/UCAID will have its fall member meeting in Los Angeles, October 27-30th. For more information, see http://www.internet2.edu/activities/html/fall_02.html

CURRENT PNWGP AND PACIFIC WAVE PARTICIPANTS

Pacific Wave International Peering Services Participants
    AARNet
    ATTBI
    CA*net 4
    Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN)
    Energy Sciences Network (ESNet)
    Microsoft Corporation
    Peer1.net
    Pointshare
    TransPAC
    TANET2

Pacific Northwest Gigapop Transit Participants
    Arctic Region Supercomputing Center
    AARNet (Australian Academic and Research Network)
    Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center
    City of Seattle
    -- King County
    -- Seattle Public Library
    Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
    Institute for Systems Biology
    Microsoft Research
    Montana State University
    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Pacific Marine
    -- Environmental Laboratory (NOAA/PMEL)
    Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
    Portland Research and Education Network
    -- Oregon Graduate Institute
    -- Oregon Health & Sciences University
    -- Portland State University
    Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
    Seattle Community College District
    Seattle Pacific University
    University of Alaska
    University of Idaho
    University of Montana
    University of Washington
    Washington State Dept. of Information Services
    Washington State K-20 Network
    Washington State University
 

UPDATING YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have changes in contact info for administration, billing, technical, routing, tech backup, or outages notifications, please email gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net or call 206-934-5588.

PNWGP CONTACT LIST

General Information & Circular Subscriptions
1-206-934-5588 / 1-888-934-5588
gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net
www.pnw-gigapop.net
www.pacificwave.net

Network Operations Center (7x24)
1-206-934-5580 / 1-888-934-5580
noc@pnw-gigapop.net

Web Site Contact
webmaster@pnw-gigapop.net

PNWGP Services Manager
Jan Eveleth
1-206-221-2300
eveleth@cac.washington.edu

Network Engineering Manager
David Richardson
1-206-934-5580

Mailing Address
4545 15th Ave N.E.
Seattle, Washington 98105-4527
USA

Fax
1-206-934-5589 / 1-888-934-5589

More information about Internet2 can be found at
http://www.internet2.edu/

Circular 004 September 2002
Copyright (c) 2002 Pacific Northwest Gigapop

WASHINGTON D.C. - May 7, 2002: An international team set a new record for Internet performance by transferring the equivalent of an entire compact disc's contents across more than 7608 miles (12,272 km) of network in 13 seconds. The rate of 401 megabits per second achieved in transferring 625 megabytes of data from Fairbanks, Alaska to Amsterdam in the Netherlands is over 8000 times greater than the fastest dial-up modem.

The record-setting team consisted of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks; the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam; and SURFnet, the national computer network for higher education and research in the Netherlands. In setting the new Internet2 Land Speed Record (I2-LSR) they used the networking capabilities of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, an access point to leading edge networks; the Internet2 Abilene backbone network; StarLight, the advanced optical infrastructure and proving ground in Chicago, Illinois; and SURFnet.

The high-speed SURFnet connections used to set this record were developed as part of the GigaPort project, the Dutch Next Generation Internet initiative. The interconnection between SURFnet's PoPs in Amsterdam and Chicago uses Global Crossing's virtual private network service. On both ends standard PC-like hardware running Debian GNU/LINUX was used.

"Today's high-performance Internet networks in at least the US and the Netherlands, as well as the interconnection between the two, have no bottlenecks any more for high speed data applications," said Erik-Jan Bos, Manager Network Services at SURFnet. "What we found is that the bottleneck has shifted towards the very end of the connections: the computers in use with limited bandwidths on the bus."

"This shows that geography is no barrier to advanced network applications," said Kerry Digou, systems programmer who headed the University of Alaska team. "Using standard equipment and infrastructure developed in the Internet2 community, we've pushed the boundaries to the edges."

Cees de Laat, researcher at the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam and member of the Grid Forum Steering Group, adds: "High-speed backbones are essential for today's Grid Applications where scientists on a global scale want to handle terabyte size datasets in international collaborations. This Land Speed Record shows what two distant locations can do together when they set their mind to it."

"The new Internet2 Land Speed Record demonstrates that high-performance networking is not constrained by national boundaries," said Rich Carlson, network research scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and chair of the I2-LSR judging panel. "The international team involved in this effort has set a new standard for wide area, high-performance networking."

Entries were judged on a combination of how much bandwidth they used and how much distance they covered end to end, using standard Internet (TCP/IP) protocols. The Internet2 Land Speed Record is an open and ongoing competition. Details of the winning entries, complete rules, submission guidelines and additional details are available at http://www.internet2.edu/html/i2lsr.shtml

About Internet2(R): Led by over 190 U.S. universities, working with industry and government, Internet2 is developing and deploying advanced network applications and technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 recreates the partnerships among academia, industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy. For more information about Internet2, see http://www.internet2.edu/

About SURFnet and GigaPort: SURFnet operates and innovates the national research network, to which 150 institutions in higher education and research in the Netherlands are connected. To remain in the lead, SURFnet puts in a sustained effort to improve the infrastructure and to develop new applications to give users faster and better access to new Internet services. SURFnet is partner in GigaPort, a project of the Dutch government, trade and industry, educational institutions and research institutes which aims to give the Netherlands a head start in the development and use of advanced and innovative Internet technology. For more information, see http://www.surfnet.nl/en/ and http://www.gigaport.nl/

The Faculty of Science of University of Amsterdam: The Advanced Internet Research group of the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Science researches new architectures and protocols for the Internet. It actively participates in worldwide standardization organizations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Global Grid Forum. The group conducts experiments with extremely high-speed network infrastructures. The Institute carries out groundbreaking research in the fields of security, authorization, authentication and accounting for Grid environments. The Institute is developing a virtual laboratory based on Grid technology for e-science applications. For more information, see http://www.science.uva.nl/research/air/

About the University of Alaska: The University of Alaska is Alaska's only public system of higher education. The system, which covers an area one-fifth the size of the contiguous United States, is comprised of three multi-mission universities located in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, with extended satellite colleges and sites throughout Alaska that provide educational services to urban and rural populations of diverse cultural backgrounds. The university is a land-, sea-, and space-grant institution with strong state and federally funded research programs. For more information, see http://www.alaska.edu

Contacts:

Greg Wood
Internet2
ghwood@internet2.edu
202-331-5360

Sandra Passchier
SURFnet
sandra.passchier@surfnet.nl
+31 30-2305305

Robert L. Miller
University of Alaska
bob.miller@alaska.edu
907-474-6311

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Heather Sirr
WCI Cable, Inc.
Ph: 503-533-5552
Email: hsirr@wcicable.com

HILLSBORO, OREGON - May 5, 1999 - WCI Cable, Inc.

The Pacific/Northwest GigaPoP, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland State University, the Oregon Graduate Institute and the University of Washington today announced that WCI Cable (WCIC) has become an Internet2 Corporate Partner. As part of its next generation Internet Corporate Partnership, WCIC is providing a high-speed fiber optic cable link connecting Portland, PSU, OGI and OHSU to the national Internet2 research and education network via the Pacific/Northwest GigaPoP.

This new next generation Internet-capable link, operating at 622 million bits per second, is more than 100 times faster than the previous Internet connections for these locations. It is also more than 20,000 times faster than a typical modem, and extends unprecedented advanced networking capabilities to Oregon's academic, clinical research, and R&D communities. This link will be a key factor in enabling the continued competitiveness of local technology businesses in the Internet economy of the future.

It will catalyze the potential for delivering robust real time Internet-based applications such as interactive videoconferencing, tele-immersion, telemedicine, HDTV, on demand video, telephony, multimedia and shared virtual reality. In addition, it will enable new forms of network-aware and adaptive applications, and deliver the 'trust fabric' middleware needed for truly pervasive electronic business.

Oregon Graduate Institute President Dr. Edward Thompson said, "This far-sighted collaboration provides Portland's Research Universities with the facilities and the institutional partners necessary for our region's continued growth. The collective base of complementary knowledge and skills brought together by this initiative will enable the leading research and educational institutions in the Northwest to create and benefit from the next generation of Internet applications and content. Our students and faculty will now be able to play significant roles in the evolution of advanced networking and networked applications."

In addition to providing this advanced network infrastructure, WCI Cable technical staff is actively participating with Internet2, the Pacific/Northwest GigaPoP, and partner universities in exploring the network, content, and applications possibilities inherent in such technologies.

"The new Internet2 capabilities this provides will allow us to realize the promise of telemedicine and real time collaboration with the top medical research institutions in the country," said Peter Kohler, M.D., President of Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). "Both health care and education are being transformed and extended by networking, much as these technologies are reshaping the landscape of business. Complimentary OHSU initiatives are underway to create high-speed linkages among Portland area educational institutions such as Portland State University and Oregon Graduate Institute, and to enhance the connectivity to UO and the statewide network. The direct connection to Internet2 afforded by WCI Cable linking Portland to the Pacific/Northwest GigaPoP in Seattle provides Portland students and faculty with direct access to the technologies that will shape the region's future."

"Portland State University is extremely excited to have the opportunity to participate and collaborate in the development of the next generation Internet in the Pacific Northwest" said Bruce Taggart, Ph.D., Executive Director, Office of Information Technologies at Portland State University. "By having enhanced access and high-speed connectivity to Internet2 in Portland via the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP we will be able to provide our faculty, researchers, and students with access to high bandwidth applications not previously available to them such as remote research instrumentation, IP video communications, and terabyte data mining of national research databases. Having high-speed access to a full Internet2 hub and related technologies will allow the university to experiment with new methods for instructional delivery, explore new research opportunities, and allow our entire university community to develop collaborative relationships with other universities regionally, nationally, and internationally."

"WCI Cable's remarkable commitment has provided completely new connections among Internet2 universities." said Douglas Van Houweling, President and CEO of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), which is leading the Internet2 project. "Partnerships such as these accelerate the accessibility to the advanced networking applications and technologies that will transform higher education and benefit the entire global Internet community."

Last month, in a related effort, WCI Cable and the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP announced provision of a similar OC-12 between Seattle and Fairbanks, Alaska. Together with today's Portland-Seattle announcement that creates one of the two or three most powerful high-speed wide area next generation Internet technology testbeds in the world.

"This collaboration with the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP places the University of Alaska on the cutting edge in the development of the next generation Internet and enhances our collective regional efforts to develop the Internet2 for research and education. Now, the University of Alaska is among the top ten universities in the country when it comes to connectivity, and that has vast implications for our research capability," said University of Alaska President Mark R. Hamilton.

"This initiative adds to WCIC's network expansion plans along the west coast of North America, including Canada and Latin America," said Patrick Estenes, VP Marketing and Sales for WCIC. "It also facilitates high bandwidth connectivity to Asia, further focusing the gateway leadership of the Northwest to the rest of the world."

Internet2 is a collaborative effort led by over 150 U.S. research universities working in partnership with industry leaders and federal agencies to develop a new family of advanced network applications and technologies to meet emerging academic requirements in research, teaching, and learning. Internet2, a project of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), is addressing this challenge by creating a leading edge network capability, enabling a new generation of applications, and working with industry and international partners to transfer new technologies into the global Internet.

WCI Cable, Inc. is a privately held USA corporation whose principal shareholders are a subsidiary of AMP Life Limited (an international financial services company with assets exceeding US$120 billion, (www.amp.com.au) and two privately owned Australian investment companies. WCI Cable was formed in 1997 to manage and construct terrestrial and submarine fiber optic systems, to build the NorthStar Network which connects Alaska with the Continental United States, and to undertake new network projects around the world.

The Pacific Northwest GigaPoP was one of the initial group of pioneering gigaPoPs attached to the Internet2 backbone last fall. It hosts the high speed Internet2 network node for the Northwest, is a key point of presence for the other major research and education as well as commodity internet networks, and provides unparalleled local and regional high performance peering facilities. The Pacific Northwest GigaPoP is a multi-state consortium of research and education institutions across Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana and includes the institutions and individuals that played key roles in the creation and evolution of the NSFnet and the region's existing Internet capabilities.

# # #

For further information:

WCI Cable, Inc.
Heather Sirr
503-533-5552
hsirr@wcicable.com

Internet2
Greg Wood
gwood@internet2.edu
202-872-9119

Pacific/Northwest GigaPoP
Ron Johnson
206-543-8252
ronj@cac.washington.edu

Oregon Graduate Institute
Andrew Black
apb@cse.ogi.edu

Portland State University
Bruce M. Taggart, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Office of Information Technologies
503-725-2927

University of Alaska
Steve Smith
907-474-6309
steve.smith@mail.Alaska.edu

FAIRBANKS, PORTLAND & SEATTLE - March 31, 1999 -- The University of Washington is very pleased to announce that the University of Alaska is being connected to the next generation Internet2 super-high-speed research and education network.

This new network link provides a crucial high-performance connection between the major national Internet2 network hub in Seattle which serves the Northwest, and The University of Alaska Statewide System in Fairbanks, Alaska.

The fiber optic cable based connection provides a state of the art "SONET OC-12" link which is fully compatible with Internet2 and next-generation Internet technologies and is being contributed to the Pacific Northwest Gigapop Internet2 research and education networking effort by WCI Cable Inc.

At about 2,000 miles in length it will be the longest network segment anywhere within the Internet2 network.

The University of Alaska and the University of Washington have a long history of collaboration in research, education and medicine including a partnership in the late 1980's in bringing the original internet, then called NSFnet to the Northwest and Alaska.

The new Internet2 connection will place the University of Alaska as one of the top ten universities in the country for high-speed next-generation Internet connectivity. It gives the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, as fast a connection as exists at any other university supercomputing center in the nation.

This link will enable the University of Alaska and other qualified research and education partners to become full and active participants in Internet2 next-generation Internet development and will extend the new generation of Internet2 technologies, capabilities and opportunities to the entire research and education community in Alaska. The network link will be used for education and research purposes and will enable not only high-speed access to the U of A's supercomputing facilities and growing digital repositories, but will also provide faculty, students and staff as well as research and clinical partners with access to and roles in developing the new generation of Internet-based multimedia, video, and voice applications; powerful new forms of telemedicine; high quality distance education capabilities; teleimmersion facilities; and the leading edge e-business technologies which Internet2 and the next generation of Internet technologies enable.

High-speed Internet connection between Alaska and the rest of nation has been long sought by the University of Alaska, its partner institutions including the UW in the 'contiguous 48', and by many others in the state of Alaska and federal government. UA presently has four T-1 lines for its research and education Internet connections. The four T-1s provide a bit rate of about 6 million bits per second. An OC-12 connection furnishes about 620 million bits per second -- roughly 100 times faster than the current connection. Now, at last, the fastest and most sophisticated network transport technologies, super high-speed next-generation Internet capacity are coming to Alaska. Full OC-12-level services will be operational by September 30, 1999 in time for the Fall Internet 2 members' meeting, to be held in Seattle October 10-13.

Contacts
Ron Johnson
University of Washington &
Pacific/Northwest Gigapop
206-543-8252
ronj@cac.washington.edu

Steve Smith
University of Alaska
907 474-6309
steve.smith@mail.alaska.edu

Heather Sirr
WCI Cable Inc
503 533-5552
hsirr@wcicable.com
www.wcicable.com