Fat pipes and speedy access will replace commercialized congestion in the next generation of the Internet, which makes its debut on Wednesday.
In a demonstration in Washington, the main power switch for Internet2 will be flipped and some of its first applications take a ride on its main backbone, the Abilene network.
Led by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, the Internet2 project was established in 1996 as a test bed for the new networking gears and wires that will eventually be integrated into today's Internet.
Internet2 relies on the expertise of government and research universities worldwide and networking industry giants including Cisco, Nortel, and Qwest. Like the White House-sponsored Next Generation Internet, the Internet2 will host broadband applications that take advantage of fiber optics, gigabit routers, and advanced networking protocols.
"The prime reason for building Abilene is so that universities will have a high-speed network which they can use for application development and research, completely under their control," said Terence Rogers, director of the Abilene project in Armonk, New York. "We want a lot of capacity for our members to develop high-bandwidth applications that won't be swamped by low-level users. As fast as we learn things, we will try to transfer them to the open market."
The Abilene network has router and access nodes all across the US that allow universities and other research institutions unimpeded bandwidth for sharing resources with each other. The Internet2 operations center is located at the University of Indiana, where researchers will monitor Abilene and collect data about how well the network performs as more universities and applications come on board.
Initially, Internet2 will connect 37 universities across the country, and by the end of the year organizers expect more than 60 to be tapped in. Some of the first applications that are being designed for Internet2 include virtual laboratories, digital libraries, distance-independent education, and tele-immersion.
