Internet2 To Get GigaFast
Internet2, a network primarily used by academic and research institutions is plenty fast when it comes to speed. It currently runs at about 10 gigabits per second. But that might seem downright glacial when the network operators are done with an upgrade. Plans are afoot to use 80 channels to pump 10 gigabits per second per channel, and upgrade the total backbone bandwidth to a whopping 800 Gbps.
The upgrade will use 80 different wavelengths to send the traffic that could make it possible for uncompressed hi-def video and video conferencing, over the net collaboration and even give a massive boost to grid computing.
Internet2, a consortium of 201 academic institutions plans to phase out its Abilene network, which has been in service for seven years. The consortium will not renew its fiber contract with Qwest Communications. The Abilene Network used 10,000 route-miles of Qwest’s 10-Gigabit-per-second optical network.
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What would it cost a non-affiliated institution to hook up? I heard that the internet2 price of a T-1 is 20x or more the standard price.
anybody have a link to the graphic used above (the map)????
thanks!
Link to the map:
http://abilene.internet2.edu/files/Abilene-logical-map-2006.pdf
You can find all of the different maps for Internet2 at: http://www.internet2.edu/info/#maps
i agree that this is deff a step in the right direction for data distribution but what is this going to cost an adverage customer or is it even going to be offered, the article only talks about “academic institutions” making use of this new internet
I think finally we’re seeing a push to deploy next-gen networks… ISPs are having trouble with their users watching Internet TV and downloading off bittorrent… great!
While your torrents may clog a number of ISP’s up thats mainly due to them overselling thier lines. I’d much rather see lives saved that more people getting an episode of lost that much quicker.
Persoanlly I can see this being used for academic purposes or even in medical situations. Doctors and students being able to do Hidef streaming of operations or classes.
Sending larger ammounts of research data between locations, etc.
While I’m all for faster networks, what is the point of uncompressed video? The chips to do the compress/decompress get cheaper every day and batteries are not going to be an issue for things plugging into a multi-gigabit connection, so who needs uncompressed video?
The sad thing is there are real applications for this extra bandwidth. The aforementioned grid computing. Multi-camera video (i.e. you can see multiple angles of the same thing simultaneously for applications like remote construction, security, surgery). Super-HD video. Real time interactive applications suppoting millions of simultaneous users.
What do the physical connections to the network look like? Is it several fiber-optic lines?
Tyler, there may indeed be multiple fibers but the 80 channels they are talking about are all in the same fiber. They are using some form of wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM, CWDM, etc.) to get all those channels in the same fiber. This means expensive boxes at every junction, but no need to spend $$$ laying new cable.