DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 14, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 28    ( Table of Contents )

Special Features:

LACK OF STATE-WIDE GRID MAY STALL UNIVERSITY PROJECT

At the University of New Mexico's Center for Telehealth, Dr. Dale Alverson sees a future with medical students from all over the world can collaborating in a virtual reality emergency room, complete with computerized patient, tools and cyber representations of themselves.

This project and goal, developed by the supercomputing centers at UNM and the University of Hawaii, is in its fourth year and has generated $3.5 million in research funding. But he says the future of the project could be stymied by one major problem: New Mexico is the only state not fully connected to a new high-speed network with massive data transmission capacity that allows professors and researchers to share data, video and other information at speeds far exceeding the capabilities of the aging Internet.

New Mexico is the only state in the nation without a gigabit point-of- presence, or gigaPOP, access point to Internet 2 -- the new generation of the 30-year-old network we now call the Internet. Built by a coalition that includes the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and more than 200 research universities, and limited solely to research purposes, Internet 2 operates at a blinding 10 gigabits per second -- about 15,000 times the speed of a traditional broadband connection and 45,000 times that of a dial-up modem.

Supported by a transcontinental fiber-optic network called Abilene, research institutions in states or regions connect to a regional gigaPOP, which in turn connects them to Abilene via one of about a dozen "core nodes" in the system.

But UNM's connection to the nearest Internet 2 core node in Denver, upon which all of New Mexico's research institutions depend, runs at about 100 megabits per second -- about one one-hundredth the transmission speeds attainable on Internet 2.

Though on-campus networks run at speeds comparable to Internet 2, the network by which the state connects to the Denver node is where things slow down.

"If we try to send it over Internet 2, it hits the [data transmission speed] bottleneck. It's like trying to connect to an eight-lane highway with a two- lane road, and it's getting to be more of a problem as our ability to collect data and analyze it increases," says UNM Vice Provost for Research Terry Yates.

Alverson agrees.

"It's profound that here we are, a state with two national labs, competitive universities, and we're the only state without a gigaPOP," he says, comparing the project to the new intersection of Interstates 40 and 25, completed about a year ago. "It's like our Big I. We need an Internet 2 exchange."

With that in mind, a consortium of information technology leaders from several of the state's universities, as well as two large telecommunications firms that do business in New Mexico, are working with the University of New Mexico's Computer and Information Resources and Technology (CIRT) officials to build an appropriate onramp to the new information expressway.

Not only would the gigaPOP let the state's universities and labs tap into the vast research potential of Internet 2, it could also eventually help speed up commercial Internet traffic within the state, says Art. St. George, manager of advanced communications technologies for CIRT and self titled "Internet 2 janitor" for the university.

"The gigaPOP will serve as a high-speed exchange point within the state as well," he says.

By aggregating the bandwidth needs of the state's institutions, it would also make connecting to national networks cheaper for everyone involved, he says.

Conceived in 1996, like the original Internet, Internet 2 was developed as a means by which universities and other institutions could quickly share data. The first Internet was established in 1969 by the Department of Defense to connect universities with the military organizations for which they performed research. Much of its funding came from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"Pretty soon, the NSF realized that it wasn't in the business of running national networks," St. George says.

The foundation handed the Internet off to commercial telecommunications companies in the early 1990s, paving the way for it to become the massive network of commercial activity that it is today. As the Internet quickly became congested with dot-com activity, another group of universities got together and proposed building a new one that would meet the promises that the original never lived up to. They formed the nonprofit consortium University Corp. for Advanced Internet Development, and with the help of major sponsors like Indiana University, Denver-based Qwest Communications and Sunnyvale, California-based Juniper Networks began building the 13,000-mile system, which remains off-limits to public use. Considered a sort of "sequel" to the Internet, many expect Internet 2's benefits -- such as new video and data transmission technologies -- to eventually reach the masses.

It costs money to belong -- some universities pay millions annually to run the project, which by some estimates costs about $300 million a year to operate. UNM pays about $110,000 a year for its 100 megabit connection, St. George says.

St. George says UNM's slow connection, on which the rest of the state's institutions depend, limits research opportunities. Yates agrees, noting that New Mexico is one of several locations, including Australia and the Netherlands, competing for the proposed Low Frequency Array Radar (LOFAR) radio telescope project under development by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy. Yates says high speed access to Internet 2 would be a key consideration for officials of LOFAR, which would be similar to the Very Large Array near Socorro.

"I think this is essential for research and development in the state of New Mexico," he says. "It's already seriously inhibiting our ability to compete nationally."

Other projects, like tele-medicine and distance education networks could also benefit from better access to Internet 2, according to CIRT. An improved connection would also help private businesses that work with government agencies and laboratories.

"Say you're a biomedical research firm looking around the country. All other things being equal, you'd move to the place with the high-speed connectivity - - not here," says UNM Director of Information Technology Lou Sullo.

UNM and its partners in New Mexico have already attracted considerable help along the way. About six months ago, Time Warner Telecom offered to turn over to the university a Downtown fiber hub facility with connections to Qwest, MCI and Sprint fiberoptic systems. St. George says engineers have estimated the cost of building a similar, standalone facility at about $1 million.

Furthermore, Qwest, one of the major stakeholders in Internet 2, has offered a free connection from the proposed gigaPOP to the Denver core node until 2006. Such a connection would typically cost about $1 million to $3 million a year, St. George says.

"It bespeaks the amount of interest we have in the community," says Qwest New Mexico President John Badal. "This could enhance New Mexico's chance of becoming a research hub."

That leaves about $1 million needed to buy the equipment to build the gigaPOP, Sullo says. UNM and representatives from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Techology and New Mexico State University are working with the state to secure that money.

"We're working with the New Mexico Economic Development Department to figure out where in the maze of state government we might look for that funding," St. George says.

St. George says he hopes the system will be up and running by the middle of next year.

He says he expects most of the state's colleges and universities to join, as well as its national laboratories.