October 7, 1996
University Internet Proposed
By LAWRENCE M. FISHER
<Picture: A>group of 34 research universities agreed last week to create a
new national network for higher education, to be called Internet II, which
will offer higher speeds and more reliable service than the current
Internet.
As described in the Oct. 11 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, the
new network is intended to deliver the vastly higher speeds needed to allow
the simultaneous transmission of voice, video and data. Internet II would
give researchers the bandwidth they need to enable distance learning,
digital libraries and on-line collaborative research.
The organizers of Internet II say its advanced capabilities will ultimately
become available on the existing Internet as commercial service providers
find ways to offer more bandwidth -- a bigger pipeline to transmit a high
volume of information -- at attractive prices. The research universities
have agreed to establish and finance a new organization, with membership
fees to help create the network. They also hope to get financing from
telecommunications and computer companies, as well as from the federal
government.
"What we're trying to do is solve a whole bunch of technical problems
having to do with making the Internet operate at a higher level of
functionality," said Michael Roberts, who has been working on the Internet
II proposal and is vice president of Educom, a consortium of nearly 600
colleges and 100 companies that promote computing in higher education.
"What everybody needs is something on the order of 10 times more
bandwidth."
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the decision to move
forward with the plan was made during a meeting of campus technology
officers in Chicago last week. Computer science specialists from
Pennsylvania State and Stanford universities and the Universities of
California, Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina will play leading roles in
the network's development.