October 18, 2004 -- Engineers in Japan, Canada, United States, The Netherlands, and CERN Switzerland completed the worlds longest native 10Gigabit Ethernet circuit for the transmission of data from the Japanese Data Reservoir project to the CERN research center in Geneva, Switzerland. The length of this light path is approximately 18,500 km and spans 17 time zones.

This international cooperative project pushes the boundaries of global research and education networking and lays a foundation for a new array of international research opportunities.

Using 10Gigabit Ethernet WAN PHY technology a local area network connecting computers at the University of Tokyo was extended to include computers at CERN so that they all appeared to be on the same LAN. The connection from the University of Tokyo to T-LEX was provided by the WIDE project. From T-LEX, the circuit was passed to Seattle using a wavelength donated by Tyco Telecommunications through the IEEAF, and cross connected through facilities provided by Pacific Northwest Gigapop in Seattle. From Seattle the circuit was then carried across a dedicated lambda on the CA*net 4 network to the Chicago StarLight. At StarLight, the interconnect to SURFnet's Chicago-Amsterdam lambda was made, taking the connection to NetherLight in Amsterdam. Finally, between NetherLight and CERN, SURFnet's Amsterdam-Geneva lambda was used.

The network connection involved interconnecting optical lambdas across equipment from a variety of vendors including Foundry Networks, Nortel Networks and Cisco Systems. This is believed to be the first demonstration of the interoperation of 10Gigabit Ethernet WAN PHY and optical SONET/SDH equipment from these vendors.

The 10Gigabit Ethernet connection will be used by the Data Reservoir/GRAPE-DR project of the University of Tokyo to test the optimization and transfer of larger TCP data flows across such a long fat pipe facility. Such transfers are of particular relevance to the ATLAS experiment at CERN's future Large Hadron Collider, where the University of Tokyo is contributing a data analysis center. The data transfer is achieved between a pair of data-sharing systems Data Reservoir placed at the University of Tokyo and CERN. An average transfer rate of 7.57 Gbps was achieved for a single TCP stream, using standard Ethernet frames, between two high-end servers equipped with Chelsio T110 10Gigabit Ethernet adapters.

The Data Reservoir system also achieved a 9 Gbps disk-to-disk data transfer with 9 Xeon servers at each end of the connection. This performance figure has not been reported before on an intercontinental disk-to-disk situation.

This networking experiment complements and supports activities underway in the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF). Most of the participants in this effort are also participants in GLIF.

The demonstrations were made possible through the support of the following manufacturers, who have generously contributed their equipment and knowledge: Foundry Networks, Nortel Networks, Chelsio Communications, Cisco Systems, Bussan Networks, and Net One Systems.

We acknowledge the support of: the European Union project ESTA (IST-2001-33182), CERN OpenLAB, SARA, Global Crossing, Industry Canada, NTT Communications, Special Coordination Fund for Promoting Science and Technology, MEXT, Japan, and ITC of the University of Tokyo.

CANARIE is Canada's advanced Internet organization, a not-for-profit corporation that facilitates the development and use of next-generation research networks and the applications and services that run on them. By promoting collaboration among key sectors and by partnering with similar initiatives around the world, CANARIE stimulates innovation and growth and helps to deliver social, cultural, and economic benefits to all Canadians. CANARIE positions Canada as the global leader in advanced networking, and is supported by its members, project partners, and the Government of Canada. CANARIE developed and operates CA*net 4, Canada's national research and education network. For more information, visit:
http://www.canarie.ca/

CERN is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, one of the world's most prestigious centers for fundamental research. The laboratory is currently building the Large Hadron Collider. The most ambitious scientific undertaking the world has yet seen, the LHC will collide tiny fragments of matter head on to unravel the fundamental laws of nature. It is due to switch on in 2007 and will be used to answer some of the most fundamental questions of science by some 7,000 scientists from universities and laboratories all around the world. For more information, visit:
http://www.cern.ch/

Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, applications cooperative, testbed, point of presence; home to the Pacific Wave international peering exchange; and joint steward with WIDE of the IEEAF trans-Pacific link. PNWGP and Pacific Wave connect together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading edge R&D and new media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and the Pacific Rim. For more information, visit:
http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/

SURFnet operates and innovates the national research network, to which over 150 institutions in higher education and research in the Netherlands are connected. The organization is among the leading research network operators in the world. SURFnet is responsible for the realization of GigaPort Next Generation Network, a project of the Dutch government, trade and industry, educational institutions and research institutes to strengthen the national knowledge infrastructure. Research on optical and IP networking and grids are a prominent part of the project. For more information, visit:
http://www.surfnet.nl/

University of Tokyo, Data Reservoir /GRAPE-DR Project is a research project funded by the Special Coordination Fund for Promoting Science and Technology, MEXT, Japan. The goal of the project is to establish a global data-sharing system for scientific data and to construct a very high-speed computing engine for simulation in astronomy, physics and bio-science. GRAPE-DR project will construct 2PFLOPS computing engine and global research infrastructure that utilize multi-10Gbps networks in 2008. This experiment is performed by cooperation of the University of Tokyo and Fujitsu Computer Technologies, LTD. For more information, visit:
http://data-reservoir.adm.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
http://grape-dr.adm.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
Contact: Kei Hiraki <hiraki@is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp>

WIDE, a research consortium working on practical research and development of Internet-related technologies, was launched in 1988. The Project has made a significant contribution to development of the Internet by collaborating with many other bodies -- including 133 companies and 11 universities to carry out research in a wide range of fields, and by operating M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET, one of the DNS root servers, since 1997. WIDE Project also operates T-LEX (http://www.t-lex.net/) as an effort of stewardship for the IEEAF Pacific link in Tokyo.
Contact: <press@wide.ad.jp>
Tel: +81-466-49-3618 (c/o KEIO Research Institute at SFC)
Fax: +81-466-49-3622

The Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to obtain donations of telecommunications capacity and equipment and make them available for use by the global research and education community. The IEEAF TransPacific Link is the second 10 Gbps transoceanic link provided by IEEAF through a five year IRU donated by Tyco Telecom; the first, the IEEAF TransAtlantic Link, connects New York and Groningen, The Netherlands, and has been operational since 2002. IEEAF donations currently span 17 time zones. For more information, visit:
http://www.ieeaf.org/

GLIF is a consortium of institutions, organizations, consortia and country National Research Networks who voluntarily share optical networking resources and expertise for the advancement of scientific collaboration and discovery, under the leadership of SURFnet and University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. For more information, visit:
http://www.glif.is/

HONOLULU, HI - January 26, 2004 - The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) have agreed to cooperate in a joint project to create, deploy, and operate an advanced, extensible peering facility along the entire Pacific Coast of the U.S.

The implementation of this novel international peering facility known as Pacific Wave creates a new peering paradigm by removing the geographical barriers of traditional peering facilities. Pacific Wave enables any U.S. or international network to connect at any one location along this U.S. Pacific Coast facility, as well as the option to peer with any other Pacific Wave participant regardless of the site of their physical connection.

By presenting a seamless, unified international peering exchange facility at strategic Pacific Coast locations, the Pacific Wave peering facility will be a magnet for research and education partners throughout Canada, Mexico, South America and the Pacific Rim. Its an innovative network facility bound to enhance the robustness of cyberinfrastructure for global collaborations, noted Douglas G. Gatchell, program director for International Networking in the Division of Shared Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation.

The Pacific Wave international peering exchange facility will initially offer connection points in Los Angeles and Seattle, which are proximal to submarine cable landing sites along the coast. A 10 Gig-E service will interconnect the two Pacific Wave nodes. Plans for the Layer 2, Ethernet-based exchange facility include support for all IP traffic types (IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) and jumbo frames. The Pacific Wave 10 Gig-E facility from Los Angeles to Seattle is expected to be deployed by the summer of 2004. The program will be jointly managed by CENIC and PNWGP.

Both CENIC and the PNWGP work to enhance network services for research and education in their regions, and each are actively engaged in the collaborative deployment of the National LambdaRail (NLR). The availability of the NLR facility made it simple to provision the first connector between LA and Seattle.

PNWGP has operated an international peering facility in Seattle since 1998, which has significant participation by federal and Pacific Rim research and education entities. The University of Southern California (USC), a founding member of CENIC, has operated the Los Angeles Access Point (LAAP) since 1996 and is partnering with CENIC to transition the LAAP to become the Pacific Wave Los Angeles connection point. Current participants of these two peering locations will benefit from the advanced capabilities of the new Pacific Wave international peering collaboration.

Some of the organizations already participating in peering at these locations include AARNet (Australian Academic & Research Network), Boeing Research, CA*Net4 (Canada's Research and Education Internet Backbone), Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN), Energy Sciences Network (ESNet), GEMnet, Internet2/Abilene, Microsoft Corporation, SingAREN (Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network), and TANET2 (Taiwan Academic Network).

For more information about Pacific Wave, visit www.pacificwave.net

CENIC is a not-for-profit corporation serving the California Institute of Technology, California State University, Stanford University, University of California, University of Southern California, California Community Colleges and the statewide K-12 school system. CENICs mission is to facilitate and coordinate the development, deployment and operation of a set of robust multi-tiered advanced network services for this research and education community. For more information about CENIC, visit www.cenic.org

PNWGP is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, point of presence, and home to the Pacific Wave International Peering Service. PNWGP and Pacific Wave connect together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading edge R&D and new media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, Australia, and Japan. For more information about PNWGP, visit www.pnw-gigapop.net

CONTACT:

Julie M. Van Fleet, President
Van Fleet & Associates
Voice: 619.276.0090
Email: julie@vanfleet.us
www.vanfleet.us

New High-Speed Fiber-Based Telecommunications Network to be Formed

Bozeman, MT - October 8, 2003 - Researchers who live in urban states with high-speed internet connections can do a lot of things that Montana scientists can't do, says Gwen Jacobs, head of the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Montana State University-Bozeman.

Across the nation, researchers are building a powerful new research infrastructure that allows scientists around the country to work together in real time, Jacobs said. They have other capabilities that Montana researchers don't even realize.

"These types of activities require high bandwidth, high-speed telecommunications networks," Jacobs said. "We don't have these capabilities in Montana and other rural states, so there are many things that we cannot do."

The situation will improve, however, with the formation of a new high-speed fiber-based telecommunications network for biomedical researchers in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii and Nevada, Jacobs said. MSU-Bozeman has just received a $9.89 million award from the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to lead an effort to develop and implement that network.

The new network, called Lariat, will let scientists and educators take advantage of the wealth of remote research resources, collaborations and expertise that are routinely available to scientists in other areas of the country, said Jacobs who will lead the project with Ron Johnson, Vice President of Computing and Communications and Vice-Provost at the University of Washington.

"Lariat will serve as an instrument supporting educational and research needs and will bring this region, with its highly valuable intellectual capital, more fully into the mainstream of American science and healthcare delivery," Johnson said. "This project will address directly issues of geographical isolation, universal access to resources and be a major step forward towards eliminating the digital divide for these states."

U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said, "I am pleased the increases we have worked for at the National Institutes of Health are contributing to improvements in Montana through MSU. High-speed internet and rural telemedicine closes the distances we face in a rural state like Montana, and this will give us the ability to compete on a level playing field with major metropolitan areas."

Burns is a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee which funds the NIH.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said the project will help boost Montana's economy and advance important research at MSU.

"I'm pleased I was able to support funding for this important project," Baucus said. "This award will greatly enhance communication among the participating programs, and it'll help create good-paying jobs while advancing critically important research. This is very good news, and I commend all the folks who have contributed to this project."

Jacobs said the Lariat network is expected to take two to three years to complete and is intended to be a model for future projects elsewhere. It will involve local and national experts in networking and biomedical research, as well as those who head the Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN) programs in each participating state.

This project will create two types of networks. One will be a fiber-based telecommunications network that will upgrade the internet connectivity of the six participating states. The other will be a research network composed of biomedical researchers whose productivity will be increased through collaboration, training and access to research tools, Jacobs said.

All the institutions involved in this project have developed state-wide networks of researchers that are now linked through activities in the BRIN program, Jacobs said. Four of the institutions are already linked to the University of Washington through the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) Medical Education Program. The other two institutions are members of the Western Tier of rural states.

Evelyn Boswell, MSU Research Office , (406) 994-5135 or evelynb@montana.edu

National LambdaRail, Inc. Puts Promise of Experimental Network Infrastructure in Hands of Nations Scientists and Researchers

WASHINGTON, D.C. September 16, 2003 National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR), a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies, today announced it is deploying a new and unique national networking infrastructure to foster the concurrent advancement of networking research and next generation network-based applications in science, engineering and medicine. NLR aims to reenergize innovative research and development into next generation network technologies, protocols, services and applications.

National LambdaRail is an important development by the community. It will contribute to the cyberinfrastructure that is critical to progress in every field of science and engineering, said Peter Freeman, Assistant Director for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation. We are very pleased because this can lead to significantly expanded access for many researchers and educators to computational, analytical and visualization tools, as well as large data repositories. This will help create new scientific opportunities across the frontier.

NLR is probably the most ambitious research and education networking initiative since the ARPANET and the NSFnet, both of which led to the commercialization of the Internet. In the spirit of these great success stories, NLR strives to again stimulate and support innovative network research to go above and beyond the current incremental evolution of the Internet. The results of such endeavors are expected to facilitate further commercial development and creation of new technologies and markets, thereby stimulating economic development and contributing to U.S. national competitiveness.

The new infrastructure provides a wide range of facilities, capabilities and services in support of both application level and networking level experiments. NLR serves a diverse set of communities including computational scientists, distributed systems researchers and networking researchers. An explicit goal of NLR is to bring these communities closer together to solve complex architectural and end-to-end network scaling challenges. The unprecedented richness and flexibility of this unique optical and IP infrastructure, combined with robust technical support services, allow multiple concurrent large-scale networking research and application experiments to coexist on the same infrastructure. This will enable network researchers to deploy and control their own dedicated testbeds with full visibility and access to underlying switching and transmission fabric.

Integral to NLR is each members commitment to further improve end-to-end network performance by providing dedicated optical capabilities from campus research labs to integrate seamlessly with NLR, said Tracy Futhey, Chair of NLR Board of Directors and Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Duke University. We will work closely with the growing set of regional and enterprise optical networking initiatives to deliver NLR capabilities to university campuses and into researchers laboratories. We hope to spur the development of other such efforts around the country.

For the first time, the research community has acquired a national dark fiber footprint that can concurrently support network research at the optical, switching, routing, middleware, and application layers. NLR is lighting the first fiber pair with an optical Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) network capable of transmitting up to 40 simultaneous light wavelengths (lambdas or waves) each at 10 gigabits per second (Gbps).

NLR is also deploying a switched Ethernet network and a routed IP network over the optical DWDM network. Combined, these networks enable the allocation of independent, dedicated, deterministic ultra-high performance network services to applications, groups, networked scientific apparatus and instruments, and research projects. The optical waves enable building networking research testbeds at switching and routing layers with ability to re-direct real user traffic over them for testing purposes. For optical layer research testbeds additional dark fiber pairs are available on the national footprint.

NLR is the first national scale network to deploy transcontinental circuits based upon 10 Gbps Ethernet (LAN PHY) technologies end-to-end, which are widely used in enterprise, institutional and home networks. This inclusion of Ethernet standards based facilities in NLR represents a generational shift in the nature, usability and cost of technologies in backbone networks. NLR is expected to enable a new generation of pervasive high performance cyber infrastructure for science and research which will eventually migrate to enterprise and industry use.

Critical to this unique effort is the participation of Cisco Systems, Inc. As the key provider of equipment to NLR and a proponent of its research objectives, Cisco technologies, including optical DWDM multiplexers, Ethernet switches and IP routers are being used for deployment of the infrastructure.

National LambdaRail is a unique concept for advanced networking research, said Mario Mazzola, Chief Development Officer for Cisco Systems. It is not only a unique network infrastructure and tool, but it is also a virtual laboratory for its partners and will concurrently support innovative research at all layers of the network, as well as next generation applications. As such, it will be a useful tool in developing new capabilities for future critical and cyber infrastructures.

NLR is currently seeking additional complementary corporate participation as well as collaboration with federal research agencies in support of their sponsored research projects to achieve a broad impact within the research and education community.

Current NLR members and associates include:

• Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, CENIC (http://www.cenic.org)
• Pacific Northwest GigaPop, PNWGP (http://www.pnw-gigapop.net)
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (http://www.psc.edu)
• Duke University (http://www.duke.edu), representing a coalition of North Carolina Universities
• Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership, MATP and the Virginia Tech Foundation (http://www.midatlantic-terascale.org)
• Cisco Systems (http://www.cisco.com)
• Internet2® (http://www.internet2.edu)
• Florida LambdaRail, LLC (http://www.flrnet.org)
• Georgia Institute of Technology (http://www.gatech.edu)
• Committee on Institutional Cooperation (http://www.cic.uiuc.edu)

Pending NLR members and associates include:

• Texas Universities Consortium

# # #

About National LambdaRail
National LambdaRail (NLR) is a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications. NLR puts the control, the power and the promise of experimental network infrastructure in the hands of our nations scientists and researchers. Visit http://www.nationallambdarail.org for more information.

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 005

OC-192 Abilene Backbone Connection to Pacific Northwest Completed
Pacific Wave Welcomes SingAREN and GEMnet
Comotiv Systems Joins Portland Research and Education Network
10GbE Connections to Pacific Wave Now Available
TransPacific High Definition Streaming Demo for APAN Busan Meeting
Internet2 Fall Member Meeting in Indianapolis October 2003

Current PNWGP and Pacific Wave Participants
Updating Your Contact Information
PNWGP Contact List

OC-192 ABILENE BACKBONE CONNECTION TO PACIFIC NORTHWEST COMPLETED

As part of its national backbone upgrade, Internet2 completed implementation of two Abilene OC-192 (10Gbps) segments into Seattle in July. One segment extends to Sunnyvale, California and the other to Denver, Colorado.

Much earlier this year, in preparation for the implementation of these two segments, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop upgraded its connection to the Abilene backbone to 10GbE. Internet2/Abilene participants at PNWGP may now benefit from the increased throughput to and throughout the Abilene backbone.

The two new OC-192 segments replace the prior OC-48 and OC-12 circuits at the Internet2 Seattle POP. The Abilene circuit is now supported on the Pacific Northwest Gigapop side by a Juniper T320 router and a Juniper T640 router on the Abilene side.

PACIFIC WAVE WELCOMES SingAREN AND GEMnet

Spring saw the arrival of two new Pacific Wave Participants: SingAREN and GEMnet.

SingAREN, the Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network, is a national initiative started in 1997 to create a high-speed broadband network platform supporting research and education (R&E) and advanced network technology development in Singapore, serving users from academia, research organizations and industry. SingAREN promotes and facilitates R&D in next-generation broadband and internet technologies, links Singapore's R&E community to the global information
infrastructure, and fosters collaboration.

GEMnet is based in Japan and funded by NTT laboratories to promote the use of high-speed communications infrastructure. Some of the projects supported by GEMnet include:

1. A collaborative, very long-baseline interferometry (vlbi) project done with the Ministry of Education, the national Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the MIT Haystack Observatory;
2. The Galaxy Project, which uses six radio telescopes in Japan to study astronomy and crustal deformation;
3. Super High Definition Video (Digital Cinema) transfer;
4. CAVE technology and applications done in conjunction with the University of Chicago and the University of Tokyo;
5. Testing of full-mesh DWDM network;
6. Remote monitoring of the ALMA/ASTE millimeter/submillimeter radio telescope located in Chile.

COMOTIV SYSTEMS JOINING PORTLAND RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK

Comotiv Systems, Inc. is a Portland based company formerly called VirtualDesign.Net that provides hosted collaboration and video conferencing services. Comotiv is joining the Portland Research and
Education Network (PREN) and has been approved as a sponsored Internet2 member.

In a technology partnership with Portland State University (PSU), Comotiv will provide technology and services to support collaborative research between colleagues who are separated by thousands of miles and multiple timezones. Leading PSU faculty are also looking to this new technology to increase the effectiveness of distance learning. A pilot project with Comotiv is under discussion with PSU's Steve Reder, head of Applied Linguistics, to gauge the product's efficacy for a variety of
applications. The Comotiv server combines a shared project file facility and also allows participants to use IP-based audio and video conferencing.

10GbE CONNECTIONS TO PACIFIC WAVE NOW AVAILABLE

In August, PNWGP engineers upgraded one of Pacific Wave's two Foundary BigIron 4000 exchange switches to a 10GbE-capable Foundary BigIron 8000. Participants interested in peering over a 10GbE link at Pacific Wave may now do so. The remaining BigIron 4000 switch is scheduled for upgrade to 10GbE capability by the end of September. Shortly after installation of the BigIron 8000, Internet2/Abilene became the first participant to make a 10GbE connection to Pacific Wave. A 1GbE Abilene connection remains in place for redundancy.

TRANSPACIFIC HIGH DEFINITION STREAMING DEMO FOR APAN BUSAN MEETING

The Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) held its member meeting in Busan, South Korea during the last week in August. In support of this meeting, Pacific Wave and ResearchChannel conducted a demonstration highlighting 270Mbps streams of high-definition video. High-definition video servers were placed at the Portland end of the circuit, streamed to the client systems, and displayed in Busan. In multiple sessions over multiple days, these demanding streams successfully traversed the approximately 5000 miles (8000km) between the two locations.

The OC-12c circuit between Portland and Tokyo was donated to the IEEAF (Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation) by Tyco Telecommunications. ResearchChannel created and ran the application. Pacific Wave and the University of Washington coordinated the transpacific circuit
configuration with WIDE in Tokyo. Beyond Tokyo, the circuit was delivered over a variety of networks and infrastructures with contributions from KOREN (Korea Advanced Research Network), KT Corporation, QGPOP (Kyushu Gigapop project), JGN (Japan Gigabit Network), TokyoXP, ANF (Advanced Network Forum), WIDE, APAN, and LG Electronics.

INTERNET2 FALL MEMBER MEETING IN INDIANAPOLIS OCTOBER 2003

Internet2/UCAID will have its fall member meeting in Indianapolis October 13-16th. For more information,
http://events.internet2.edu/2003/fall-mm/index.html

CURRENT PNWGP AND PACIFIC WAVE PARTICIPANTS

Pacific Wave International Peering Services Participants
AARNet
ATTBI/Comcast
CA*net4
Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN)
Energy Sciences Network (ESNet)
GEMnet
Microsoft Corporation
Peer1.net
Pointshare
TransPAC
TANET2
SingAREN

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 outage 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

Circular 005 September 2003
Copyright (c) 2003 Pacific Northwest Gigapop

Effort Creates Seamless Connection Between PAIX Seattle and Numerous Education, Research, and Government Entities.

Palo Alto, CA - October 14, 2002 - PAIX.net, Inc. (PAIX) the leading neutral commercial Internet exchange and a subsidiary of Metromedia Fiber Network (MFN), today announced an agreement with Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) to interconnect the Pacific Wave and PAIX Seattle ISO Layer 2 switch fabrics, thereby bringing together two of the most respected peering infrastructure providers in the nation. This collaborative effort essentially creates one of the most robust Internet exchange points in the Pacific Northwest.

The immediate benefits that will be realized by each party's customer base are exceptional, adding to the number and variety of customers accessible through each of the respective switch fabrics. PAIX's Seattle participants, which include several major ISPs and network providers, will have the ability to interconnect and exchange traffic with the numerous research, education, and development networks connected to PNWGP's Pacific Wave international peering facility. The cumulative result is a robust peering network with access to over 20 separate educational and research networks, 4 major government networks, and a multitude of ISPs, ASPs and other Internet-centric companies from the U.S. and the Pacific Rim. In addition to each party being a recognized leader in the Internet exchange community, the two share very strict neutral business models and sophisticated business controls on the quality of their Layer 2 switch fabrics. This commonality serves as a great foundation on which to build this type of expanded connectivity.

"PAIX is very selective in establishing these types of relationships," said Shelly Fishman, VP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at PAIX.net, Inc. "Pacific Wave's neutrality, their high quality network and their deep and wide participant base make them a perfect alliance partner. By connecting our networks together, we will be adding significant value to each of our respective participant communities, and at the same time, ensuring the highest possible standards of reliability and service."

"PNWGP is a strong proponent of efficient, cost-effective network design. Peering facilities such as Pacific Wave and PAIX are integral components in these designs. We believe that the Pacific Wave participants will take full advantage of this new opportunity to bring value to their networks," said Amy Philipson, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop.

"We have already seen a demand for this type of arrangement in the Seattle metro," said PAIX's VP and General Manager Tim Guarnieri. "PAIX recently announced a similar agreement with the Seattle Internet Exchange, which our customers found valuable and brought about a frenzy of peering arrangements between our respective customers. I think we can expect an even greater response to this offering, simply because of the large number of participants on Pacific Wave's infrastructure."

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) & Pacific Wave
Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, test bed, point of presence, and home to the Pacific Wave International Peering Service. PNWGP and Pacific Wave connect together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading edge R&D; and new media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, Australia, and Japan. For more information visit www.pnw-gigapop.net and www.pacificwave.net.

About PAIX.net
PAIX.net, Inc., headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, began operations in 1996 as Digital Equipment Corporation's Palo Alto Internet Exchange. Having proven itself as a vital part of the Internet infrastructure, PAIX serves as a packet switching center for ISPs and other Internet-centric customers. PAIX also offers secure, fault-tolerant co-location services to ISPs. PAIX enables its participants to form public and private peering relationships with each other and choose from multiple telecommunications carriers for circuits, all within the same facility. PAIX is a subsidiary of MFN. To ensure its neutrality, it operates as a separate entity with its own management. For additional information about PAIX call 877-PAIXnet (877-724-9638) or visit its Web site at www.paix.net.

On May 20, 2002, PAIX's parent company, Metromedia Fiber Network, Inc., and most of its domestic subsidiaries including PAIX commenced voluntary Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

About MFN
MFN is the leading provider of digital communications infrastructure solutions. The Company combines the most extensive metropolitan area fiber network with a global optical IP network, state of the art data centers, award-winning managed services and extensive peering relationships to deliver fully integrated, outsourced communications solutions to Global 2000 companies. The all-fiber infrastructure enables MFN customers to share vast amounts of information internally and externally over private networks and a global IP backbone, creating collaborative businesses that communicate at the speed of light.

PAIX.net, Inc., a subsidiary of MFN and the original neutral Internet exchange, offers secure, Class A collocation facilities where ISPs and other Internet-centric companies can form public and private peering relationships with each other, and have access to multiple telecommunications carriers for circuits within each facility.

On May 20, 2002, Metromedia Fiber Network, Inc. and most of its domestic subsidiaries commenced voluntary Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

For more information on MFN, please visit our Web site at www.mfn.com
This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause or contribute to such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, and various other factors beyond the Company's control. This also includes such factors as are described from time to time in the SEC reports filed by Metromedia Fiber Network including the most recently filed Forms S-3, 10-K and 10-Q.

HDTV and other high bandwidth applications supported

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - September 19, 2002 -- The first long-term, transatlantic 10 gigabit per second wavelength circuit dedicated to research and education, provided by Tyco Telecommunications to the Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF) and provisioned from the U.S. to Europe through the efforts of Internet2 and SURFnet, will be inaugurated at iGrid2002 with a demonstration of uncompressed HDTV over IP sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Gigapop and the Research Channel.

The connection is provided as part of a long-term commitment by Tyco Telecommunications to the research networking community through an agreement with the non-profit organization IEEAF. Internet2, the consortium led by U.S. universities focused on accelerating the development of the Internet, and SURFnet, the Dutch national research network and hosts of iGrid2002, have put the 10 gigabit per second circuit into operation between their networks in New York and Amsterdam.

The transatlantic connection was established in time to support iGrid2002, the biennial International Grid applications-driven testbed event being held this week in Amsterdam. iGrid2002 showcases how extreme networks combined with application advancements and middleware innovations can advance scientific research. One of many applications showcased, the 1.5 Gbps uncompressed HDTV stream from Seattle to Amsterdam used the new Tyco Telecommunications link.

The 10 Gbps connection is made possible by a five-year commitment by Tyco Telecommunications to the IEEAF, a non-profit organization whose mission is to realize the opportunities in the global telecommunications marketplace on behalf of the research and education community. "Our goal is to enable 'The Global Quilt,'" says IEEAF Board Chair Don Riley, VP and CIO, University of Maryland. Tyco Telecommunications has also provided a companion 622 Mbps packet over SONET (POS) circuit to the IEEAF.

Geographic Network Affiliates International (GEO), which has played a pivotal role in the Tyco Telecommunications donation to the IEEAF, will be present at iGrid2002 promoting the Global Medical Research Exchange (GMRE) initiative, a worldwide application that exemplifies the collaborative capabilities of the Grid for high bandwidth utilization of IP for medical purposes.

The Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to obtain donations of telecommunications capacity and equipment and make them available for use by the global research and education community. Through partnerships and alliances between government, private sector entities, educational institutions, and other non-profit organizations, IEEAF fosters global educational collaboration and equitable access to network resources, calling this "The Global Quilt." IEEAF's member institutions include the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), represented by California State University at Hayward, California Politechnic University at San Luis Obispo, and University of Southern California; the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, represented by University of Washington; the Pacific Internet2 Coalition, represented by University of Hawaii; University of Maryland; the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID); Indiana University; and Geographic Network Affiliates, Inc. (GEO). For more information about IEEAF, visit www.ieeaf.org

Tyco Telecommunications (a Tyco Electronics Company) of Morristown, New Jersey is one of the world's largest providers of advanced broadband communications solutions. The company deploys and sells secure city-to-city capacity and collocation and data center services on its global fiber optic network (TGN). The company's portfolio of network services ranges from international city-to-city broadband capacity to collocation and data center services. Tyco Telecommunications is also the world's only fully integrated supplier of transoceanic optical networks. For more information on Tyco Telecommunications and TGN, contact Andy Kowalik at 973-656-8331 or visit the Tyco Telecommunications Web site at: www.tycotelecom.com Tyco Electronics is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC; LSE: TYI; BSX: TYC).

SURFnet operates and innovates the Dutch national research network, to which over 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. Established within GigaPort, the advanced optical infrastructure NetherLight is used by researchers to investigate novel concepts of optical bandwidth provisioning and to gain experience with these new techniques. For more information, see www.surfnet.nl/en/ and www.gigaport.nl

Led by 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 see www.internet2.edu

ResearchChannel is a collaborative partnership of research universities and centers dedicated to broadening the access to and appreciation of their individual and collective activities, ideas, and opportunities in basic and applied research. ResearchChannel uses content, content creation, and manipulation processes as a workbench to test materials for their future analog and digital broadcast and on-demand multimedia offerings, providing an unusual opportunity to experiment with new methods of global distribution and interaction. ResearchChannel distributes research information 24x7 via satellite, direct-broadcast satellite (EchoStar's DISH Network), cable TV, webcast, and an on-demand library. For more information, see www.researchchannel.org

Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, point of presence, and home to the Pacific Wave International Peering Service. PNWGP and Pacific Wave connects together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading edge R&D and new media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, Australia, and Japan. For more information, visit www.pnwgp.org

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

February 18, 2002

Key leaders in advanced networking announced today the formation of the Global Terabit Research Network (GTRN) - an international partnership to establish a true worldwide next generation Internet to interconnect national and multinational high-speed research and education networks. The partnership initially involves North America through Internet2 in the US and CANARIE in Canada, and Europe through the NREN Consortium. Participation of the Asia Pacific and other regions is expected soon.

"The scientific community is now truly international in just about all fields, and many vitally rely on the integration of computation, data, instruments and arrays of sensors that enable e-science," said Douglas Van Houweling, president and CEO of Internet2. "The GTRN will provide a framework in which the advanced networking community can collectively manage and provision the global scale, high-performance, persistent infrastructure required by the research and education community."

Added Fernando Liello, Chairman of the European NREN Consortium. "The GTRN will provide the connectivity and advanced Internet services needed by major multinational scientific collaborations in areas such as high energy physics, radio and optical astronomy, weather forecasting and climatology, biological sciences, and earth sciences."

Recent years have seen the creation of a number of very successful national and multinational advanced high-speed research networks such as the Internet2 Abilene network in the United States, the Canadian CA*net3 network in North America, and the pan-European GEANT network. Though these networks provide the bandwidth needed for e-science nationally and regionally, development of e-science on an international scale has been hampered by a lack of a global backbone comparable in speed and reliability to these networks.

The GTRN will provide a coherent global solution to this problem by providing a high-speed, stable, production-quality global backbone. This will allow next generation advanced Internet services to be provided to the global research and scientific community.

"Global availability of services such as quality of service, multicast and IPv6 are an important prerequisite for a truly converged and scalable global research network," said Andrew Bjerring - President and CEO of CANARIE Inc., Canada's advanced Internet development organization and a leader in the development, coordination and implementation of the national optical Internet network CA*net3. "Pervasive global access to applications such as reliable high quality video, telephony, remote instrument control, and numerous other applications that are incompatible with the current 'best efforts' IP networks requires that these advanced services be an integral part of a global research network."

"What has been seriously lacking is a true, persistent, production-quality global research and education network - one that is capable eventually of data rates of terabits per second", said Michael McRobbie, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO at Indiana University and Chair of Internet2's GTRN Committee. "The GTRN will provide this true global research network connectivity, offering the very high bandwidth connections that allow the national and regional networks to properly interconnect."

"All those involved in establishing the GTRN are to be congratulated on taking a major step forward in establishing the kind of advanced global network that is required by many international scientific research projects", said Aubrey Bush, Director of the Advanced Networking Infrastructure and Research Division in the National Science Foundation. "The NSF contributes funding to many of these projects and regards a stable world-wide research and education network that offers advanced services as being essential to them."

The GTRN will support global research and education requiring access to advanced high-performance Internet services. The GTRN will be run in a highly transparent manner so that end to end performance characteristics will be easily accessible to all parties responsible for ensuring the appropriate quality of service.

"The GTRN will provide both an application deployment infrastructure and a network testbed in support of advanced network services" said Dai Davies, General Manager of DANTE, which built and manages GEANT. "This will be an invaluable resource for the development of joint international research initiatives, such as grids of various types, as well as for joint network research initiatives."

The GTRN will consist of a global backbone initially connecting national and multinational networks in North America and Europe. Later it is expected to be expanded to Asia, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East and Africa. Access to the GTRN will be provided at a number of points of presence (GTRN Network Access Points - GNAPs).

The GTRN backbone will initially be composed of two OC-48 2.4 Gbit circuits acquired by DANTE connecting the Internet2 Abilene network and the CANARIE CA*net3 network to GEANT. These connect to the GEANT backbone in Europe at GNAPs in London and Frankfurt and to Abilene and CA*net3 in North America at the New York GNAP the GTRN partners have established. Additional high speed connections from North America to GEANT to complement those acquired by DANTE are being actively pursued, as are connections to other regions.

Internet2 will provide additional capacity on the Abilene network connecting the New York GNAP to Starlight in Chicago and to the Pacific Wave GigaPoP in Seattle to allow for the eventual connection of the Asia Pacific to the GTRN.

"StarLight is hosting experiments with dedicated end to end wavelengths coming from Holland, CERN, Canada, Illinois, Indiana, Washington, and California. Starlight will thus be a vital GNAP in the GTRN," said Tom DeFanti, Director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and principal investigator of the NSF Science, Technology And Research Transit Access Point (STAR TAP/StarLight). "The GTRN will connect Starlight and several other GNAPs in North America to several points on the GEANT network. As such the GTRN complements the StarLight wavelength experiments, offering a unified solution to connectivity between North America and Europe."

Ron Johnson, Vice President for Information Technology at the University of Washington responsible for Pacific Wave, commented "Pacific Wave is pre-positioned to be a key GNAP for integrating the Asia Pacific into the GTRN. Pacific Wave already has connections to, and selective ultra high-performance exchange among Japan, Australia, Canada and Taiwan network fabrics, and the GTRN is the next logical step in the development of connectivity across the Asia Pacific and evolution of a global teragrid."

These resources will form the initial GTRN backbone and Internet2, CANARIE and the European NREN Consortium have agreed to manage all these facilities in a coordinated and cooperative way. The Global Network Operations Center (GNOC) at Indiana University will provide NOC services to the GTRN as will the DANTE NOC and eventually a NOC in the Asia Pacific.

Related Links:

DANTE/GEANT (http://www.dante.net/)
Internet2 (http://www.internet2.edu)
CANARIE/CAnet3 (http://www.canarie.ca/)
NSF (http://www.nsf.gov/)
STAR TAP/Starlight (http://www.startap.net/starlight/)
Pacific Wave (http://pacificwave.net/)
Global NOC (http://globalnoc.iu.edu/)

Contacts:

Dai Davis (DANTE, dai.davies@dante.org.uk, +44-1223-302992)

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

Susan Baldwin (CANARIE Inc., Susan.Baldwin@canarie.ca, 612-943-5399)

Karen Adams (Indiana University, kadams@indiana.edu, 812-856-5596)

Time Warner Telecom Delivers Optical and IP Services to the University of Washington and Streaming Media Technologies -- University of Washington extends its Internet2 Pacific Northwest Gigapop (infrastructure) to Portland. -- Streaming Media Technologies Distributed Media platform rides Time Warner Telecom's fiber and IP networks.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - January 22, 2002 - Time Warner Telecom Inc. (Nasdaq: TWTC), a leader in providing metro and regional optical broadband networks and services to business customers, today announced contracts with the University of Washington and Streaming Media Technologies, Inc. to provide fiber and IP services.

"These two competitive contract wins show the diverse applications that Time Warner Telecom offers," said Keith Hall, general manager for Time Warner Telecom Seattle. "Meeting these customers' needs shows our ability to support next generation technology applications through our fiber-based network solutions."

"Selecting vendors is always a rigorous procedure for the University of Washington," said University of Washington Associate Vice Provost Jacqueline Brown. "In addition to rigorous technical requirements that must be met, we scrutinize each vendor's reliability, history, responsiveness, technical competence, and the extensibility of their network offerings. Time Warner Telecom came through this analysis with high marks."

The University of Washington's Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the point of presence for the Internet2 Abilene research and testbed gigabit network. Time Warner Telecom's OC-3 network connection joins Pacific Northwest Gigapop facilities in Seattle and Portland and extends the Internet2 point of presence to both cities. This circuit allows the research and education community located in the Portland area to make their connection to Internet2 locally. This new connection offers data flow protection not previously implemented between these two cities. The result is greater Internet2 reliability for the Gigapop partners in Portland.

This circuit connects the Portland Research and Education Network with other Pacific Northwest Gigapop partners such as Microsoft Research, the Defense Research & Engineering Network, Children's Hospital, the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, and the Australian Academic Research Network.

Time Warner Telecom, with its robust nationwide IP backbone, also provides high capacity IP connections for next generation digital media platforms. Streaming Media Technologies, Inc. provides the management, encoding, storage and distribution of digital video, audio and images across the world for its customers. The Company is integrating a Time Warner Telecom OC-3 IP network connection, operating at 155 Megabits per second, as a foundation for its streaming media services.

"Time Warner Telecom was the one company bidding on this job that has a stable foundation, cutting edge network architecture, and a national footprint that fits well with our future expansion plans," said Jason Turner, CEO and president of Streaming Media Technologies. "Our business requires a great deal of bandwidth and our customers expect flawless service. Time Warner Telecom was able to provide us with both."

About Time Warner Telecom Inc.
Time Warner Telecom Inc., headquartered in Littleton, Colorado, delivers "last-mile" broadband data, dedicated Internet access and voice services for businesses in 44 U.S. metropolitan areas. Time Warner Telecom Inc., one of the country's premier competitive telecom carriers, delivers fast, powerful, and flexible facilities-based metro and regional optical networks to large and medium customers. Please visit www.twtelecom.com for more information.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) & Pacific Wave
Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, point of presence, and home to the Pacific Wave International Peering Service. PNWGP and Pacific Wave connect together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading edge R&D; and new-media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, Australia, and Japan. For more information visit www.pnw-gigapop.net and www.pacificwave.net

About the University of Washington
The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer-reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top ranked programs, the UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge"TM. For more information visit www.washington.edu.

About Streaming Media Technologies, Inc.
Streaming Media Technologies (SMT) offers a secure Web-based geographically Distributed Media Management Platform enabling customers to manage, store, reformat/encode, and distribute digital media (video, audio, and images). The SMT Distributed Media Management Platform is revolutionary in addressing issues in dealing with the management of digital media and provides an integrated, easy to use solution to its customers. Customers and market sectors who benefit from SMT's platform include media companies, film studios, wireless providers, telecommunications companies, cable companies, video on demand providers, universities, Fortune 2000, government, financial companies, audio subscription companies, medical and geospatial imaging companies, as well as content providers. For more information please visit streamingmediatech.com.

For more information contact:
Tom Henley
Media Relations
303-566-1692
tom.henley@twtelecom.com

Under the leadership of Bob Franza, Cell Systems Initiative has taken the first steps in enabling biology to make the conceptual leap from describing the cell to understanding how a living system works. Franza believes that to do this, scientists will need three things: a specialized language for biological systems, a new array of tools, and the means for extensive collaboration. Future biologists will need to enter the field with experience in these areas, and so CSI has embarked upon an educational initiative that will create a virtual space to bridge the gap between the activities of the research laboratory and the science classroom.

"Understanding cell systems will require the efforts of several generations of biologists. We need to use animations and other techniques to intrigue students and promote the study of biology," Franza explains.

The first step toward the creation of a virtual classroom is the Labscape digital laboratory assistant, a model-based structure that provides scientists (and students) a clear overview of the scientific/experimental process.

Computer Scientist Larry Arnstein, the PI on the project, first began thinking about computer uses in biology in 1999, although the Labscape design and development process did not begin until earlier this year. The development team includes Chia-Yang Hung, Jing Su, Jong-Hee Kang, Gary Look, Stefan Sigurdsson, and Gaetano Borriello.

"The major challenge was to cast the project in the right light," Arnstein says. "In looking for a way for biologists to communicate better we realized that we had to come up with a language and tools to make their lives easier. We needed to produce something immediately sharable and understandable by others without any extra effort on the part of the scientist. That something turned out to be the ubiquitous lab assistant that we call Labscape."

Larry designed the Labscape user interface (a flow graph) so that it can be used in a number of ways. Using live or recorded video feed from a working biology laboratory, the Labscape assistant will allow students to participate in experiments by following a protocol in progress in the lab and watching the scientists perform the steps. Students would link to the protocol interface used by the scientist to see the recording and analysis of the real data generated by the experiment. Mentoring relationships between students and scientists would allow for a dialog to develop around the steps of the protocol.

A long-term goal for Labscape is to provide an easy way to design experiments to test their hypotheses by selecting from preprogrammed steps and protocols. Students or teams of students could design and submit experiments to be carried out in the biology laboratory, and could watch video of their experiments being performed, and receive and analyze the results.

Students could also use Labscape to learn a protocol before actually performing it in the school laboratory. Or the user interface can provide an interactive experiment simulation tutorial, where the students assemble the reagents and samples and perform the experiment online.

CSI's Lisa Jenschke feels that one of the main strengths of the Labscape assistant is that it will provide both an overview of the procedure and accurate capture of details and results without the need to record details in the traditional lab notebook and then transfer them to the computer.

Labscape's transfer of large data sets, and use of live video feed and extensive simulations make high bandwidth essential.

Over the next few months, the CSI development team and Joe Duncan, Lisa Jenschke, Neil Fanger, and Paul Loriaux will be working with selected high-school students on the further development of Labscape.

Joe Duncan explains why it is so important to include high-school students in the development process. "Our hope and expectation is that the next generation of biologists, which is in high school now, will really embrace this type of tool. By the time these students enter university, using tools like Labscape will be second nature to them."

By Fall 2002, Labscape will be operational in an area high school, with plans to expand the program to at least one other high school the following year.

Bob Franza and Joe Duncan

Larry Arnstein

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop Circular is an occasional update of participant activities, new technologies, meetings, services upgrades, and enhancements. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Circular along with other occasional informational announcements related to the Gigapop, send email to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net.

In this Circular 003

TRANSIT SERVICE PRICING CHANGES
TRANSPAC AND TANET2 JOIN PACIFIC WAVE
CELL SYSTEMS INITIATIVE DEVELOPS I2 APPLICATION
AARNET BIO-MIRROR COMES TO LIFE
PNWGP UPGRADES COMMODITY INTERNET CIRCUITS
CURRENT PNWGP AND PACIFIC WAVE PARTICIPANTS
UPDATING YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION
CONTACTING THE PNWGP

TRANSIT SERVICE PRICING CHANGES
   The telecommunications landscape has changed significantly in the past two and a half years. Until now, the PNWGP price model had not.
  The original PWNGP pricing model for Internet2 Abilene and commodity Internet services was based on ranges of anticipated use within either the commodity services or the Internet2 services. This model created financial 'bumps' whenever a new, larger circuit was installed to support increased use. While billing was predictable, there was little opportunity for savings based on steadily escalating use.
  The new usage-based pricing model is geared to allow for smooth pricing transitions with increased bandwidth usage. Plus, it combines the commodity with Abilene transit usage to help those organizations purchasing both to get to those savings faster.
  For any service greater than DS1, there are two components to the new transit fees: a fixed monthly port fee, and a per Mbps usage fee based on the 95th percentile for the month. Both inbound and outbound traffic are measured every five minutes; the usage fee is based on the higher 95th percentile of the two.
  As part of the new administrative procedures, all participant traffic will be measured at their router port. This model will simplify billing and traffic reporting. For those participants getting both Abilene and commodity services, PNWGP will be able to provide only estimated breakdowns between the two types of traffic.
  The new price model will take effect January 1, 2002. To receive a copy of the current Services Catalog, please send email to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net.

TRANSPAC AND TANET2 JOIN PACIFIC WAVE
   Within the past few weeks, the traffic passing over Pacific Wave has expanded its international reach significantly to include Asia Pacific Academic Network (APAN) entities via TransPAC and the Taiwan Research Network (TANET2).
  TransPAC provides high-performance international Internet services connecting the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) to the Internet2 Abilene high-performance network, vBNS, and other global networks for purpose of international collaborations in research and education.
  TANET2 is built and run by the Taiwan National Center for High-Performance Computing. It connects Taiwan's leading research institutions to each other and, via Pacific Wave, to the leading research and education networks around the world.
  All PNWGP transit customers will now be able to seamlessly pass IP traffic with these new entities as part of their regular PNWGP service. Pacific Wave participants who are interested in establishing peering relations with TransPAC or TANET2 should refer to their contact information at www.pacificwave.net.
  For more information about TransPAC visit www.transpac.org. For more information about APAN, visit www.apan.net. For more information about TANET2 visit www.tanet2.net.tw.

CELL SYSTEMS INITIATIVE DEVELOPS I2 APPLICATION
   While many equate Internet2 with the Abilene high bandwidth testbed network, Internet2 has advanced application programs that reach well beyond the network itself. The Cell Systems Initiative based at the University of Washington is developing one such high bandwidth intensive application in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
   Under the leadership of UW Professor Bob Franza, the Cell Systems Initiative program has taken the first steps in enabling biology to make the conceptual leap from describing the cell to understanding how a living system works. Franza believes that scientists will need three things in order to do this: a specialized language for biological systems, a new array of tools, and the means for extensive collaboration. Future biologists will need experience in these areas, so CSI is creating a virtual space to bridge the gap between activities of the research laboratory and the science classroom.
  The first step toward the creation of a virtual classroom is the Labscape digital laboratory assistant, a model-based structure that provides scientists and students with a clear overview of the scientific/experimental process.
  For more complete information on this initiative and Labscape, see the full article at www.pnw-gigapop.net/cell.html.

AARNET BIO-MIRROR COMES TO LIFE
   AARNet and the GrangeNet consortium in Australia recently announced the implementation of the Bio-Mirror project. The project's goal is to provide a global set of mirror sites for large-scale bioinformatic/genomic data sets, thereby providing high-speed access to Australian researchers and reducing the network load on the source sites whenever a major new release of data is made available.
  The Bio-Mirror site is currently over 65GB in size and growing steadily. Current datasets provided include: BLAST, GenBank, FlyBase, MGD (Mouse Genome Data), Prosite, and many others. This service is possible because of AARNet's connectivity to Pacific Wave and the many research and education networks that it peers with here.
  For more information, contact Markus.Buchhorn@anu.edu.au or bio-mirror@apan.net.

PNWGP UPGRADES COMMODITY INTERNET CIRCUITS
   While the primary function of the PNWGP is serving as a connection point to the Internet2 Abilene network, commodity Internet services are also available to our participants.
  The commodity services have been upgraded from 305Mbps (burstable to 445Mbps), to 1.45Gbps within the past six months. Previously, services were delivered by four vendors over five circuits ranging from DS3 to OC-3. The new services are delivered by four vendors on four circuits ranging from OC-3 (155Mbps each) to GbE (1000Mbps). Vendors delivering these circuits are Level3, WorldCom, Sprint, and Verio.
  Each vendor provides multicast, has significant bandwidth into and out of the Pacific Northwest region, and significant established public and private peering relationships.
  In addition to offering vendor diversity, this latest round of vendor enhancements also added a level of geographic diversity to the circuits. Three OC-3s terminate at the Westin Building in downtown Seattle and the GbE circuit terminates at 1000 Denny at the Level3 gateway providing an extra level of redundancy to the service.

CURRENT PWNGP AND PACIFIC WAVE PARTICIPANTS
   For a current diagram of PNWGP and Pacific Wave participants, go to pacificwave.net and select either the .gif or .pdf version of the thumbnail graphic by the listing of section headers.

Pacific Wave International Peering Services Participants
  AARNet
  @Home
  CA*Net3
  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
  Boeing Research
  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, tech backup, or outages notifications, please email gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net or call 206.934.5588.

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

Network Operations Center (24x7)
206-934-5580
888-934-5580
noc@pnw-gigapop.net

Web Site Contact
webmaster@pnw-gigapop.net

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

Network Engineering Manager
David Richardson
206-934-5580

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

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

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

Circular 003 December 2001
Copyright (c) 2001 The University of Washington

University of Washington to Use Level 3 IP Service to Provide Internet Connectivity for Students and Faculty

BROOMFIELD, CO - November 30, 2001 -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT) today announced it has signed a one year agreement to provide (3)CrossRoads Internet access service to the University of Washington.

Under the terms of the agreement, the University of Washington will use Level 3's (3)CrossRoads Internet access service to provide connections to the public Internet and other networks for students, faculty, researchers, medical professionals, and leading edge technologists throughout the Pacific Northwest.

"Level 3 provides broadband services that meet the unique bandwidth needs of higher education and research communities," said Jack Waters, chief technology officer for Level 3. "This agreement with the University of Washington is representative of the opportunities we're seeing for broadband services in education and research communities. The University of Washington generates a substantial amount of Internet traffic and has broadband infrastructure needs that are well suited to Level 3's network capabilities."

"We look forward to working with the University of Washington to help its students and faculty expand their use of the Internet to learn, conduct research, communicate, and continue to contribute to the future of technology in the Pacific Northwest."

"The University of Washington and its affiliated networks put exceptionally high demands on our Internet and networking infrastructure," said Scott Mah, director of the University of Washington's Communication Technologies division. "The fact that we chose Level 3 as one of our providers is testimony to their technical competence and depth of network engineering. We look forward to taking advantage of all that the Level 3 services have to offer."

(3)CrossRoads Internet Access Service

(3)CrossRoads is a global Internet access service designed to provide superior network performance across Level 3's multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) backbone currently operating at 10 gigabits per second. Engineered for maximum flexibility and scalability, (3)CrossRoads takes advantage of the latest available technologies to meet customers' needs. (3)CrossRoads provides connectivity from a variety of locations around the world, including Level 3 data centers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. For more information on (3)CrossRoads, visit http://www.level3.com/us/services/crossroads/

(3)CrossRoads is a service mark of Level 3 Communications, Inc.

Some of the statements made by Level 3 in this press release are forward-looking in nature. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. Level 3 believes that its primary risk factors include but are not limited to substantial capital requirements, development of effective internal processes and systems, the ability to attract and retain high quality employees, changes in the overall technology economy, the number and size of competitors in its markets, law and regulatory policy, and the mix of products and services offered in the company's target markets. Additional information concerning these and other important factors can be found within Level 3's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this release should be evaluated in light of these important factors.

About the University of Washington
The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer-reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top-ranked programs, the UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge". (For more information see www.washington.edu.)

About Level 3 Communications
Level 3 (Nasdaq:LVLT) is a global communications and information services company offering a wide selection of services including IP services, broadband transport, collocation services and the industry's first Softswitch based services. Its Web address is www.Level3.com.

Contact info:

Level 3 Contacts:
Media:
Josh Howell
720-888-2517
Paul Lonnegren
720-888-6099
Investors:
Robin Grey
720-888-2518

University of Washington Contact:
Jan Eveleth
206-221-2300

Unprecedented Demonstration Validates Next-Generation Internet Technology

DENVER, Nov. 12, 2001 - Working in collaboration with the University of Washington, the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) and Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT), Tektronix, Inc. (NYSE:TEK), a market leader in video and telecommunications test equipment, last night successfully demonstrated the first transmission of uncompressed real-time gigabit high-definition television (HDTV) signals over an Internet Protocol (IP) optical network. The demonstration was conducted as part of SuperComputing 2001 at the National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development booth.

The HDTV transmission demonstration proved that Universal Network Access System (UNAS) technology has met the critical requirements to distribute challenging high-speed streaming data (which requires that the entire data stream be sent together), such as uncompressed HDTV signals, over IP networks. Although large amounts of data are sent over proprietary or ATM networks today, IP transmission is expected to be the preferred method of delivery as it becomes the most cost-effective method of rapidly sending information - including voice, video and data - over the Internet. The UNAS project is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency Information Technology Office's (DARPA/ITO) Next-Generation Internet (NGI) program.

"By participating in the Universal Network Access System project, Tektronix is not just enabling, but also creating next-generation Internet technologies," said Rick King, vice president, Optical Business Unit, Tektronix, Inc. "This successful demonstration incorporates Tektronix-developed technologies that are a springboard to the measurement and monitoring tools needed for tomorrow's optical networks and the Internet."

Joint Technology Development Key to Achievement
The technologies for the demonstration were jointly developed by Tektronix, USC/ISI, and the University of Washington (UW). These developments are a part of the DARPA NGI supported projects that include the UNAS project and USC/ISI's Next-Generation Internet Multimedia Applications and Architecture project. This demonstration builds on the work of UW who first pioneered real-time HDTV over IP at an unprecedented, record-setting demonstration at SC1999.

Leading up to the demonstration, the key enabling technologies were tested and refined using the high-performance networks of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop and Mid-Atlantic Crossroads, as well as the Internet2 Abilene backbone network. During the demonstration, the digital video content was sent from UW's laboratories in Seattle, Washington, to the receiver at the SuperComputing 2001 exhibition hall in Denver via Level 3's advanced IP fiber-optic network. The demonstration set a new standard for Internet performance by streaming digital video at 1.5 Gb/s--more than 25,000 times faster than a typical computer modem.

The ResearchChannel provided the streaming HD content via Pacific Northwest Gigapop's ultra-high performance 'Pacific Wave' exchange facilities, and along with the UW, the custom high performance multimedia server. Level 3 provided the network over which the transmission occurred. The Tektronix technology allowed video processed as data packets to be sent, received and compiled into play-out

-more-

streams. Tektronix technology was used to compare packets at the input and output
to determine if packets were lost or reordered during the transmission.

HDTV Transmission One of Many Uses for Universal Network Architecture
The DARPA/ITO UNAS project fosters the development of new rapidly-deployable, reconfigurable broadband interfaces for network-edge applications. UNAS is envisioned as a configurable network element that resides at the Internet's edge and adapts to the network's myriad protocols, hastening the deployment of new applications and services. UNAS technology will provide Internet "on-ramp" capability for applications ranging from distributed computing to telemedicine.

Tektronix took a primary engineering/design role in developing the Universal Network Access Engine (UNAE) for the system. The UNAE is a key building block for network edge devices such as terminal adapters, service multiplexers, edge switches, and Quality of Service monitoring equipment. The flexibility of the UNAE will aid Internet architects in designing and testing new protocols that are better optimized for optical networks.

HDTV signals in SMPTE-292M format were chosen to represent the many types of demanding broadband content that will be sent over IP-enabled wide area optical networks. While the data rate of the transported video payload and encapsulation was greater than 1.5 Gb/s, the current UNAS architecture can support rates up to 2.5 Gb/s.

About the Companies
Tektronix, Inc. is a test, measurement, and monitoring company providing measurement solutions to the telecommunications, computer, and semiconductor industries worldwide. With more than 50 years of experience, Tektronix enables its customers to design, build, deploy, and manage next-generation global communications networks and Internet technologies. Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix has operations in 25 countries worldwide. Tektronix' Web address is www.tektronix.com.

The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer-reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top-ranked programs, UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge" ^(TM) and economic development through research and active technology transfer programs. For more information visit www.washington.edu.

Established in 1972 and widely regarded as one of the birthplaces of the Internet, the Information Sciences Institute is part of USC's School of Engineering. More than 325 staff, including faculty and post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and staff work on two campuses in Marina del Rey, Los Angeles, California and Arlington, Virginia. They carry on basic and applied research on all aspects of computing, including chip design, software design, artificial intelligence, natural language and networking. USC/ISI's designs and programs are found in numerous devices and applications worldwide.

ResearchChannel is a collaborative partnership of research universities and centers dedicated to broadening the access to, and appreciation of, our individual and collective activities, ideas, and opportunities in basic and applied research. ResearchChannel uses content, content creation, and manipulation processes as a workbench to test materials for our future analog and digital broadcast and on-demand multimedia offerings, thus providing an unusual opportunity to experiment with new methods of distribution and interaction on a global basis. ResearchChannel distributes research information 24x7 via satellite, direct-broadcast satellite (EchoStar's DISH Network), cable TV, webcast, on-demand library. www.researchchannel.com.

Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, and point of presence. PNWGP connects together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading-edge R&D and new-media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, Australia and the Pacific rim. 'Pacific Wave' is a ultra high performance exchange/peering service of the PNWGP. For more information visit http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/.

Level 3 is a global communications and information services company offering a wide selection of services including IP services, broadband transport, collocation services, and the industry's first Softswitch-based services. Its Web address is www.Level3.com.



# # #


Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Media Contact:
Jayne Scheckla
503/627-5741
jayne.scheckla@tektronix.com

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, U.S.A. - November 7, 2001-- TransPAC today joins a prestigious group of international research, education, and development networks that exchange network traffic through the Pacific Wave International Peering Service at the Pacific Northwest Gigapop in Seattle, Washington.

TransPAC provides high-performance international Internet services connecting the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) to the Internet2 Abilene high-performance network, vBNS, and other global networks for the purpose of international collaborations in research and education. Indiana University is responsible for network engineering, operation, and management for TransPAC within the United States.

"The key to successful global collaboration within the research and education communities is a seamless, efficient, and effective underlying communications infrastructure," said Indiana University's James Williams, Manager Advanced Network Services. "The Pacific Wave service is a well-engineered and critical component of this overall infrastructure that assists us in meeting these communications needs."

Pacific Wave is a fully-redundant IP traffic switching infrastructure designed for use by research and educational institutions within the U.S. and the Pacific Rim. Capable of passing 128Gbps of traffic today, Pacific Wave is located at a premier telecommunications carrier facility in Seattle, Washington. TransPAC connects APAN across the Pacific and into this facility over an OC-12 (622Mbps) circuit provisioned by Teleglobe.

"TransPAC is providing an immensely valuable service in connecting APAN entities to other, research networks worldwide. By connecting to Internet2 at the Pacific Wave, TransPAC offers yet another level of synergy that will help reduce the barriers to international research efforts," said Ron Johnson, Vice President and Vice Provost of the University of Washington. "Indeed, many of those research efforts are underway right here in the Pacific Northwest at the University of Washington, University of Alaska, Oregon Health & Science University, as well as at others of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop's partners."

Through Pacific Wave, TransPAC will directly exchange network traffic with the Internet2 Abilene network, AARNet (the Australian Academic and Research Network), CA*net 3 (the Canadian Academic Network), as well as the Pacific Northwest Gigapop and its affiliated research and education networks throughout Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

"Internet2's partnership with the APAN community will be greatly enhanced by the upgraded TransPAC connections via the Pacific Wave. Projects like Pacific Wave and TransPAC play an important role in contributing to the Internet2 goal of enabling research and education globally over high-performance networks," said Heather Boyles, Director of International Relations for Internet2.

TransPAC offers its high-bandwidth research network to nearly 300 Asia-Pacific and United States educational institutions and research laboratories for testing a range of applications, including astronomy, molecular biology, high-energy physics, medicine, meteorology, computational science, and distance learning. Major funding for TransPAC comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation.

About TransPAC
TransPAC provides high-performance international Internet services connecting the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) to the Internet2 Abilene high-performance network, vBNS, and other global networks for purpose of international collaborations in research and education. For more information visit www.transpac.org.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) & Pacific Wave
Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, point of presence, and home to the Pacific Wave International Peering Service. PNWGP and Pacific Wave connect together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading-edge R&D; and new-media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, Australia, and Japan. For more information visit www.pnw-gigapop.net and www.pacificwave.net.

About Indiana University
Indiana University is one of the oldest state universities in the Midwest and also one of the largest universities in the United States with more than 110,000 students, faculty, and staff on eight campuses. IU has a growing national and international reputation in the areas of information technology and advanced networking. For more information visit www.indiana.edu.

About the University of Washington
The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer-reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top-ranked programs, the UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge"TM. For more information visit www.washington.edu.

About Internet2
Led by over 180 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 of academia, industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy. For more information visit www.internet2.edu.

About Teleglobe
A leading provider of global communications and Internet services, Teleglobe has a maximum lit capacity of 10 million+ Gbps-miles, 57 major POPs, and 300,000 square feet of hosting facilities (year end 2001). Teleglobe has one of the world's largest international Internet backbones serving a broad base of enterprise, Internet content Provider (ICP), internet service provider (ISP), and carrier customers. For more information visit www.teleglobe.com.

Contact info:

TransPAC/Indiana University
Brian D. Voss
Tel: 812-855-7676
Email: bvoss@indiana.edu

Pacific Northwest Gigapop/University of Washington
Jan Eveleth
Tel: 206-934-5588
Email: gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net

Internet2
Greg Wood, 
Tel: 202-331-5360
Email: ghwood@internet2.edu

Teleglobe
David L. Thompson
Tel: 1-703-755-2950
Email: david.thompson@teleglobe.com

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - October 30, 2001 - Today the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has expanded its network connectivity by provisioning an OC-3 (155Mbps) circuit into the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP). This strategic connection will provide direct and efficient high bandwidth access among PNNL and the major research and development entities throughout the Pacific Northwest including the University of Washington, Oregon Health Sciences Center, and the Universities of Alaska, Montana, Idaho, and Montana State.

"The University of Washington is pleased that PNNL will have via the PNWGP a robust, direct connection to support our several major collaborative initiatives," said Scott Mah, Director of Communication Technologies. "Specifically, this connection will be a critical tool used by the UW-PNNL Joint Nanotechnology Institute and the Joint Program in Cell Signaling. The faster and more reliably the researchers can pass their data back and forth, the more quickly research results will be reached and communicated."

"Now, more than ever, high performance network connections are essential tools to the success in our research," says Ray Bair, associate director of Computational Sciences and Mathematics at PNNL. "By allowing information to be transferred more quickly, we believe that the resources available to us through our OC-3 connection to the Pacific Northwest Gigapop will enable PNNL staff to work more closely with our collaborators and provide them with better access to computing and data resources at the lab."

"The Cell Systems Initiative (CSI) of the University of Washington and PNNL have signed an agreement to create a joint program in Cell Signaling. This joint program focuses on providing high bandwidth, online collaboration tools and resources to cell biology researchers nationwide and, by extension, worldwide. The PNNL connection to the Pacific Northwest Gigapop is crucial to the success of this joint program," according to Joseph Duncan, Chief Operations and IT Officer at UW's CSI.

The OC-3 connection also completes a higher speed connection from PNNL to ESnet, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Science Network (ESnet), which has a presence in the Pacific Northwest Gigapop.

"This will be of great value to PNNL's leading edge research for DOE, including the agency's Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory and our global climate change research," according to Bair.

About Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is a DOE research facility that delivers breakthrough science and technology in the areas of environment, energy, health, fundamental sciences and national security. Battelle, based in Columbus, Ohio, has operated the laboratory for DOE since 1965. The William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, located on the PNNL campus in Richland, opened in 1997 and provides the national scientific community access to its advanced research equipment.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP)
Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, and point of presence. PNWGP connects together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading-edge R&D; and new-media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, and now Australia.

About the University of Washington
The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer-reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top-ranked programs, the UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge" T. (For more information see www.washington.edu.)

Contact info:

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Media inquiries: Staci Maloof
PNNL media relations
509-372-6313
staci.maloof@pnl.gov

Business inquiries: John McCoy, Program Manager
Information Sciences & Engineering
902 Battelle Boulevard
P.O. Box 999
Richland, WA 99352
Tel: 509-372-6156
Email: john.mccoy@pnl.gov
Web: www.pnl.gov

Pacific Northwest Gigapop
Jan Eveleth, Manager
4545 15th Ave. NE
Seattle, WA 98105
Tel: 206-934-5588
Email: info@pnw-gigapop.net
Web: www.pnw-gigapop.net

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop Circular is an occasional update of activities by participants, new technologies, meetings, services upgrades and enhancements. This is the first electronic mail version of the Circular. To subscribe or unsubscribe send email to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net.

In this Circular 002

PACIFIC WAVE PEERING SERVICES
PNWGP FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE QUILT
K20 SPARK LIGHTS INTERNET2
CISCO TECHNICAL EVENT OCTOBER 8 IN SEATTLE
OCTOBER PNWGP MEETING POSTPONED
PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTIONS: WHAT DO YOU DO WITH I2?
UPDATING YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION
PNWGP CONTACT LIST

PACIFIC WAVE PEERING SERVICES

  The peering service formerly known as Seattle-Network-to-Network Access Point (SNNAP) has a new name and expanded services. The new Pacific Wave peering services will not only continue to serve the needs of organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest, but will now also offer its state of the art services to research, development, and education networks throughout the U.S. and abroad. While the Canadian research network CANet*3 has been a peering participant for sometime, AARNet (Australian Academic & Research Network) was welcomed as the first Pacific Rim connector in July.
  Two more Pacific Rim connections are expected to be completed in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
  For more information on Pacific Wave, see www.pacificwave.net.

PNWGP FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE QUILT
  In the Internet2 spirit of cooperation, and as a natural consequence of the growth and evolution of Internet2, large regional aggregating gigapops from around the country have formed a new UCAID Project called The Quilt. The Pacific Northwest Gigapop is a founding member of The Quilt.
  The Quilt will focus on finding inter-aggregator synergies in 1) delivery of Internet2 and commodity Internet services; 2) technologies associated with building and delivery of services; and 3) representing the group's common interests to vendors, industry and government.
  We believe that participation in The Quilt will allow the Pacific Northwest Gigapop to address issues of concern to our partners such as cost of services, expansion of bandwidth, and opportunities to participate in broad-scale programs, including in the K20 educational and outreach arena.
  For more information on The Quilt, see http://www.thequilt.net, or contact Jan Eveleth at the PNWGP, eveleth@cac.washington.edu or 206-221- 2300.

K20 SPARK LIGHTS INTERNET2
  Washington State K20 network has begun the new school year as a full member of Internet2. Why do we care?
  Nine years ago, the number of dotcoms world wide was well under a thousand; there was no graphical interface to the World Wide Web; and the word "Internet" passed the lips only of academics and researchers.
  So what was the big deal in hooking up all of our public schools? What could sixth graders possibly learn on the Internet?
  The early K12 adopters in our region were avid in their desire to bring this technology into the schools and shape it into a tool that would help our children to learn. Some of those early adopters in our region include the Seattle, Bellevue, and Clackamas County School Districts; Catlin Gable, Lakeshore, and The Bush Schools; the award-winning University of Washington DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities and Information Technologies) program that provides enabling technologies to disabled high school students to help them successfully find their way into high caliber University academic programs.
   The energy, interest, and fervor of these Internet activists were palpable. And what do they have to show for it?
   Most of all and best of all, a half generation of students have shadowed researchers in the Antarctic, the North Pole, outer space, and under the ocean. They posed their questions directly to the researchers and got real time answers. They learned about space by viewing a multitude of Voyager satellite images online.
   They learned about other cultures by corresponding with electronic 'pen pals' and 'sister schools' across the world, exchanging music, pictures of their families, pets, friends, and artwork.
   They participated in and coalesced community environmental projects such as watershed monitoring for salmon habitat.
   They became a socially redeeming jewel in what was to become an electronic world of commerce and hype. The Internet is a better place because of what K12 has contributed.
   From the beginning, the Washington State legislature saw the enormous opportunities in networking and funded a statewide K20 network engineered to be Internet2-enabled from the start. This network has been operational for over four years. And this summer, they were included in the ranks of Abilene connectees.
   As we continue to shape and define Internet2, the Washington K20 voices, energy, and vision will be crucial to making the next generation of the Internet an even more compelling, enriching, and more human place in which to engage.
   Please join us in welcoming Washington K20 to Internet2!

CISCO TECHNICAL EVENT OCTOBER 8 IN SEATTLE
   The place is set (the Westin in Seattle), the panel of speakers are coming (Cisco technical experts), and you are welcome to attend this full day session compliments of Cisco. We encourage you to send your technical representatives to engage in a lively conversation with distinguished Cisco staff as well as with other technical representatives from participating PNWGP organizations. Haven't you just been eager to find out about the newest release? Upcoming developments? How they plan to fix that annoying 'feature' that you deal with every day? Well, this is your chance.
   To register, go to http://www.regweb.com/cisco/I2EduRoadshow. If you have questions, contact Michael Rich at 408-527-3617 or mrich@cisco.com.

OCTOBER PNWGP MEETING POSTPONED
   To those of you who marked your calendars for a mid-October meeting, thank you! Now please get out your eraser. I was not able to get a venue for the meeting (at least nothing that would support reasonable Internet connectivity). Will try again for the spring and let you know.

PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTIONS: WHAT DO YOU DO WITH I2?
   The PNWGP Circular would like to circulate your success stories. This is an excellent opportunity to share research efforts, technical developments, programs, cultural initiatives, and "How Internet2 Changed My Life" stories. Please send an outline or overview of the topic you'd like to cover to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net.

UPDATING YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION
   If you have changes in personnel and/or contact info for administration, billing, technical, tech backup, or outages notifications, please email gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net or call 206-934-5588.

PNWGP Contact List

General Information

206-934-5588

888-934-5588

gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net

www.pnw-gigapop.net

Network Operations Center (24x7)

206-934-5580

888-934-5580

noc@pnw-gigapop.net

Web Site Contact

webmaster@pnw-gigapop.net

PNWGP Services Manager

Jan Eveleth

206-221-2300

Network Engineering Manager

David Richardson

206-934-5580

Mailing Address

4545 15th Ave N.E.

Seattle, WA 98105-4527

Fax

206-934-5589

888-934-5589

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

Circular 002 October 2001
Copyright (c) 2001 Pacific Northwest Gigapop

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA - October 1, 2001 - The Pacific Northwest Gigapop has expanded and renamed its regional peering service, formerly called Seattle-Network-to-Network Access Point, or SNNAP. The expanded peering services will now be offered under the name Pacific Wave. Pacific Wave will continue to include peering services for entities within the Pacific Northwest, but has expanded its offering to include research and education networks from throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond.

"The Pacific Northwest Gigapop was established in part to support state of the art networking infrastructure that would unite researchers and educators in the Internet2 effort. The Pacific Wave service extends this mission to entities beyond the United States by providing a convenient, cost-effective peering service," said Ron Johnson, Vice President and Vice Provost of the University of Washington. (The University of Washington is the founder of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop.)

"When looking at the Pacific Wave service, AARNet (Australian Academic & Research Network) recognized a desirable congruence of an easily accessible carrier-class facility near the western U.S. coast, high bandwidth peering access to the Internet2 Abilene network, as well as access to several U.S. Federal networks and the Canadian research and education network, CANet*3. In addition, the peering infrastructure will support our multicast needs and enable us to more efficiently stream media between Australia and our peering partners," said George McLaughlin Executive Director of AARNET.

"We are pleased that Pacific Wave is offering an effective option for research and education networks around the Pacific Rim to connect to members of the Internet2 community in the United States and beyond," said Heather Boyles, director of international relations for Internet2. "Pacific Wave is yet another example of how Internet2 member institutions are making important contributions to the rest of the Internet2 membership by facilitating high performance international connectivity with research and education institutions around the world."

Pacific Wave looks forward to the addition of two more Pacific Rim research and education networks in the next few weeks.

In addition to those already mentioned, other peering partners of Pacific Wave include Energy Sciences Network (ESNet), Defense and Research Engineering Network (DREN), CANet*3, Microsoft Corporation, and AT&T; @Home.

About Pacific Wave
Pacific Wave is a peering service of the Pacific Northwest Gigapop. Located in an internationally-recognized carrier facility in downtown Seattle, Washington, USA, Pacific Wave supports peering among international and national networks as well as among organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest. Participants connect to the Pacific Wave peering switches at either dual gigabit ethernet or dual fast ethernet. At this time, the redundant Pacific Wave switches have a switching capacity of 128Gbps. While each Pacific Wave participant will peer with the Pacific Northwest Gigapop and its affiliated networks, all other bilateral peerings through Pacific Wave are self-selected and implemented by the peering participants directly.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP)
Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, and point of presence. PNWGP connects together high-performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading-edge R&D; and new-media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, and Australia.

About the University of Washington
The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer-reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top-ranked programs, the UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge". (For more information see www.washington.edu.)

About AARNet
AARNet Pty Ltd is a not-for-profit company that operates the AARNet2 network, providing Internet services to 37 Australian universities, CSIRO Australia and their research and education partners. AARNet provides an incubator for development of advanced network infrastructure and applications. It has a national and international focus with access to the global research and education networks through the Pacific Northwest Gigapop. AARNet is also a member of the GrangeNet consortium that will build a multi-Gigabit backbone in Australia and develop advanced network and grid services to support advanced and innovative applications.

About Internet2
Led by over 180 US 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 of academia, industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy.

Contact info:

Pacific Northwest Gigapop and Pacific Wave
Jan Eveleth, Manager
4545 15th Ave. NE
Seattle, WA 98105
Tel: 206-934-5588
Email: info@pnw-gigapop.net
Web: www.pnw-gigapop.net

AARNet
George McLaughlin, Executive Director
AARNet Pty Ltd (ACN 084 540 518)
GPO Box 1142, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
Tel: 61-2-6276-6900
Email: inquiries@aarnet.edu.au
Web: www.aarnet.edu.au

Internet2
Greg Wood,
Tel: 202-331-5360
Email: ghwood@internet2.edu
Web: www.internet2.edu

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA and CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA - July 31, 2001 - Collaboration among researchers and students "down under" with those in North America took a giant leap forward today as AARNet (the Australian Academic and Research Network) activated its transpacific optical fiber connection to the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. The Pacific Northwest Gigapop is a primary interconnection point for advanced research and education networks in Canada, the U.S., and now the Pacific Rim.

Dual 155 Megabit per second connections traversing physically diverse paths allow the Australian research community to communicate quickly and efficiently with researchers, and enjoy access to advanced research resources and apparatus in the Canada and the U.S.

The dual paths, running Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), provide redundant capacity while retaining the ability to load balance and potentially burst to 310Mbps. The network also provides Quality-of-Service and Virtual Private Network capabilities.

"Having optical fiber circuits connected directly to advanced networks of North America via the Pacific Northwest Gigapop provides enormous opportunities for collaborative programs. The most significant achievement in bridging this transoceanic digital divide will be our newly acquired abilities to traffic in high quality remote sense, video, sound, and multimedia material as well as in huge scientific datasets and other demanding digital objects like medical images. This will make virtual neighbors out of our partner networks and resources across the world. Exploiting such mechanisms to develop relationships between researchers is key to fostering and sustaining excellence in research, education, and economic development," said George McLaughlin, Executive Director of AARNet.

"AARNet faced the challenges and isolating forces of extreme geographic distance head on with an audacious and well architected effort. With the continued leading edge work of their talented and determined network engineering staff, these circuits will support AARNet's role as one of the top research networks in the world. We are pleased to help them accomplish this and to provide them with the next-generation infrastructure they need to move their data efficiently among their partners around the world. This important addition to the global research and education network fabric will benefit us all," said Ron Johnson, Vice President and Vice Provost of the University of Washington.

The first connections through the Pacific Northwest Gigapop will be to CA*net 3 and Internet2 backbone networks, the advanced research and education networks of Canada and the United States, respectively. "In addition," McLaughlin added, "we will obtain immediate very high speed and lowest latency access to the research and education networks and the interconnected computational and information resources throughout the Pacific Northwest and California."

Early deployment of multicast multimedia connections across the new links will allow Australia's participation in SC2001, the first truly global technical conference on Grid technology and applications. The host site will be in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A., however Sydney, Australia will be one of a number of constellation sites throughout the world participating and contributing sessions to this unique global event.

Researchers in areas such as bioinformatics, satellite imaging, and online health applications have joint programs ready to take advantage of the new infrastructure.

The experience of AARNet's national deployment of Voice-over-IP will provide a useful framework to build on developments in new multimedia applications.

The transpacific fiber optic cable is part of the Southern Cross Cable Network with US landing and backhaul to PNWGP provided by WCI Cable and with the Australian backhaul to AARNet provided by Powertel. The cable spans 30,500 km under the Pacific with landing sites in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, Oregon, and California. It took 19 months to lay the cable.

About AARNet
AARNet Pty Ltd is a not-for-profit company that operates the AARNet2 network, providing Internet services to all 37 Australian universities, CSIRO Australia and their research and education partners. AARNet provides an incubator for development of advanced network infrastructure and applications. It has a national and international focus with access to the global research and education networks through the Pacific Northwest Gigapop. AARNet is also a member of the GrangeNet consortium which will build a 10Gbps backbone in Australia and develop advanced network and grid services to support advanced applications.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP)
Pacific Northwest Gigapop is the Northwest's Next Generation Internet, Internet2/Abilene applications cooperative, testbed, and point of presence. PNWGP connects together high performance international and federal research networks with universities, research organizations, and leading edge r&d; and new-media enterprises throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Canada, and now Australia.

About the University of Washington
The University of Washington is one of the world's top research universities. Perennially among the top three American institutions in peer reviewed research activities and related competitive contracts and grants, and with numerous top ranked programs, the UW is a university which truly embodies the ideals of "Learning @ the Leading Edge". (For more information see www.washington.edu.)

About WCI Cable
WCI, headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, is made up of World Net Communications, Inc., WCI Cable, Inc., WCI LightPoint, LLC, and Alaska Fiber Star, LLC. Collectively the group manages and constructs terrestrial and submarine fiber optic systems and telecommunications infrastructure. WCI provides carrier neutral colocation facitilites and undertakes new network projects throughout North America and the Pacific Rim.

About Internet2
Led by over 180 US 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 of academia, industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy.

About CA*net 3
CA*net 3 is Canada's Advanced Research and Education Internet backbone, connecting individual universities, federal and provincial government labs and research institutes through provincially based Regional Advanced Networks, or RANs.

About Powertel
PowerTel is the third largest provider of broadband telecommunications services to the corporate and wholesale market in Australia. Its 2,400km fiber optic network links Brisbane, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne.

About SCCN
SCCL is the organization that has deployed the Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) which connects Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, and mainland US. It is almost 30,500 km in length, consisting of two separate cables configured in three self-healing rings. Southern Cross was initially designed to deliver 120Gbit/s of fully protected capacity between Australasia and the United States but, by employing new higher capacity Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) Technology, the network will now be upgraded to 240Gbit/s of protected capacity during 2002, with the potential to increase to 480Gbit/s at a future date.

Contact info:

AARNet
George McLaughlin, Executive Director
AARNet Pty Ltd (ACN 084 540 518)
GPO Box 1142, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
Tel: 61 2 6276 6900
Email: inquiries@aarnet.edu.au
Web: www.aarnet.edu.au

Pacific Northwest Gigapop
Jan Eveleth, Manager
4545 15th Ave. NE
Seattle, WA 98105
Tel: 206-934-5588
Email: info@pnw-gigapop.net
Web: www.pnw-gigapop.net

WCI Cable
Patrick Estenes, Vice President, Business Development
Tel: 503-466-8620
Email: pestenes@wcicable.com
Web: www.wcicable.com

Internet2
Greg Wood,
Tel: 202-331-5360
Email: ghwood@internet2.edu
Web: www.internet2.edu

CA*net 3
Shannon Cobb, Manager, Communications
CANARIE Inc.
Manager, Communications
110 O'Connor Street, 4th Floor
Ottawa, ON K1P 1H1 Canada
Tel: 613-943-5374
Email: shannon.cobb@canarie.ca
Web: www.canarie.ca

Powertel
Teresa Perdiga
55 Clarence Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: 61 2 8264 3888
Web: www.powertel.com.au

SCCN
Ross Pfeffer, Director, Asia Pacific Market
Tel: 64 4 496 3248
Email: ross.pfeffer@sccn.co.nz
Web: www.southerncrosscables.com