Return to Table of ContentsThe direction is clear. Cut the congestion on the "information highway." Stop the World Wide Wait.
And that's the vehicle the best computer minds in the country are building -- with expertise and input from Indiana University, one of the original 34 charter universities involved in the development of Internet 2 (I2).
"The general vision is to provide high-quality, guaranteed service between scientists, teachers and researchers throughout the nation," explained Christopher Peebles, acting dean of academic computing.
What that means for researchers is having at their disposal a "virtual laboratory, with guaranteed, not 'best effort' service," Peebles said.
Peebles and other IU administrators met in San Francisco in January to continue discussions on I2 that were begun in Chicago last October. I2 has tripled in size and become a key element of the Clinton administration's $100 million Next Generation Internet Initiative, as well as a close cousin to the National Science Foundation's high-speed research network, the Very High Speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS).
Peebles, a member of the I2Applications Working Group, said that IU expertise, particularly in regard to applications development, will be essential to the operation, which he projects will start within 12 to 18 months.
The I2 Applications Steering Group (http://www.internet2.edu/new/I2.meet.01.22.97.html) plans to create "a field of tools" with new multicasting, streaming, application sharing and synchronous communications technologies to let users build new distance learning/instructional management systems, digital library, virtual lab and tele-immersion applications.
Subscribers to The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/)may access the Academe Today site. The Feb. 7 "Information Technology" section of the Chronicle features I2.