Abilene Network connects coast-to-coast

Backbone network for the Internet2 project

The Abilene Project last week announced nationwide network connectivity, with links operating from New York to Seattle. Abilene will provide an advanced backbone network for the Internet2 project, and is scheduled to connect over 60 Internet2 universities by the end of 1999.

“Coast-to-coast connectivity is an important step in establishing the kind of advanced networking infrastructure needed to support the effort of the over 130 Internet2 universities across the country,” said Terry Rogers, director of the project.

“Abilene’s extensive national network will enable universities to more easily access the advanced infrastructure researchers and educators need to collaborate and share information in ways not possible over today’s Internet,” said Ron Johnson, vice president for Computing and Communications at the University of Washington.

The Abilene Project, begun in April 1998, is led by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), working in collaboration with Qwest Communications, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and Indiana University.

When fully deployed, the network will extend over 13,000 miles of fiber optic cable, with over 8,000 miles of interior circuits and another 5,000 miles of access circuits. Abilene will operate at speeds up to 2.4 gigabits per second, or about 85,000 times faster than a typical computer modem.

The Internet2 project is being led by over 130 leading U.S. universities working with industry and government to enable and facilitate the advanced network applications necessary to meet emerging needs in higher education. Internet2 participants are developing the broadband applications, engineering and network management tools for research and education. For more information on Internet2 please see: http://www.internet2.edu/ For more information on Abilene please see: http://www.internet2.edu/abilene/ ¶