The University of Massachusetts is one of more than 140 colleges and universities around the country currently participating in an advanced networking project called Internet2.  UMass was selected as one of the 98 Charter Universities to begin work on Internet2.  In February of 1998, the National Science Foundation ( NSF ) awarded UMass $350,000 to help offset the cost of connecting the Amherst campus to this new technology ( full story ).  Internet2 is an ongoing collaboration of corporations and educational institutions aimed at creating a high-speed network to test new applications, create new methods of learning, and to provide an enhanced quality of service (QoS).
 

The Internet2 mission:

Facilitate and coordinate the development, deployment, operation and technology transfer of
advanced, network-based applications and network services to further U.S. leadership in research and higher education and accelerate the availability of new services and applications on the Internet.

How UMass is involved:

UMass is connected to the Internet2 network via the very high performance Backbone Network Service, a technology developed by  MCI Worldcom.  Individual institutions connect to the vBNS through a Point of Presence (POP).  MCI currently has 16 POPs around the country.  There are 4 typical speeds at which institutions and POPs are connected:
 

Designation  Speed 
DS3 45Mbps
OC3 156Mbps
OC12 622Mbps
OC48 2.5Gbps

The fastest speed, OC48, was just recently added in January 1999 to connect two heavy-traffic POPs in California.  UMass currently connects to the vBNS at the speed of 45Mbps via a T3 line to a POP in Boston.  View the UMass vBNS router statistics.

More information about vBNS:
Internet 2 and other related links:


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