Contact: Bob Ratliff
The flip of a switch Friday [Oct. 29] made Mississippi State the state's first Internet2 connection.
The final link gives MSU researchers access to a network 100 times faster than the existing general Internet.
The link was made at the Jackson facility of Qwest Communications, an international telecommunications company assisting in the Internet2 effort.
Internet2 provides university researchers and scientists at government laboratories across the nation advanced networking capability, said Joe Thompson, MSU's chief technology officer.
Funding for the Internet2 connection was awarded last year by the National Science Foundation through a competitive grant program. MSU won the state's first such award on the basis of its record of research and instruction using high bandwidth networks.
"Mississippi State will use Internet2 for improving computer-based collaborations with research facilities nationwide," Thompson said. "The new technology will enhance especially our collaboration in scientific visualization with the Naval Oceanographic Office at the [John C.] Stennis Space Center [in Hancock County] and with other applications such as digital libraries, distance learning and 'teleimmersion.'"
Thompson, a member of President Clinton's Information Technology Advisory Committee, said the amount of commercial traffic moving on the current Internet makes the system too slow to be used in many research and university applications, such as providing classes by computer.
MSU's connection to Internet2 is coordinated by Thompson, along with Mike Rackley, head of Information Technology Services, and Tom Lindsay, director of Telecommunications.
"High bandwidth connections by universities are absolutely critical to the national research effort," he said. "The Internet2 connection will help MSU achieve its goal of moving into the ranks of the nation's top 50 research universities."
The university is part of the Abilene Project, a high performance network spanning more than 10,000 miles and connecting about 70 major research universities and federal laboratories to Internet2. The network began operating earlier this year and should be fully deployed by the end of 1999.
Abilene is a product of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, a consortium of 154 major research universities formed to put Internet2 in place. Mississippi State is a charter member of UCAID.
Qwest Communications and other major telecommunications companies are working with UCAID to develop and operate the Abilene network.