China, Russia, U.S. To Build 100MBps Network

prostoalex writes "Gloriad (Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development), a scientific data network, will unite academic institutions in China, Russia and the United States with a 100 MBps link. National Center for Supercomputing Applications received a $2.8 mln grant from NSF, and both Russia and China will match this amount to contribute to network build-up. Later this year, as the Associated Press article notes, a new plan will be launched to move the international network to 10 GBps capacity."

Comments

Bit 'B' or little 'b'?

[Kenja]

Is that 100 mega BYTES or 100 mega BITS? Likewise, giga BITES or giga BYTES?

Re:Bit 'B' or little 'b'?

[Kenja]

Well using the big 'B' is clear if its realy what you mean. Too often I see the two mixed up.

100 MBPS...

[mOoZik]

Wow, stunning...not. Even after the upgrade, it will be outdated before it ever finds a use.

Re:100 MBPS...

[jerde]

Wow, stunning...not. Even after the upgrade, it will be outdated before it ever finds a use.

Wow, stunning. You don't know what you're talking about.

The "B" is capitalized here for a reason. It's Bytes, not bits.

And if you were to RTFA, you'd find:

The network, expected to go online next month, will ring the Northern Hemisphere, connecting computers in Chicago with machines in Amsterdam, Moscow, Siberia, Beijing and Hong Kong before hooking up with Chicago again, said Greg Cole of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, one of the leaders of the Little GLORIAD project. Data will flow at 155 million bytes per second.

(emphasis mine)

A wide-area-network at well over 1Gbps (that's bits) is nothing to sneeze at.

From the same article:

Little GLORIAD is a "first big step" toward development of the higher-speed GLORIAD, Cole said. That effort, expected to be launched later this year, will move data at 10 gigabytes per second, 60 times faster than the Little GLORIAD.

Once you start talking about DVD-per-second rates of data, you've got something.

- Peter

Too slow, too late?

[Lomby]

Increase in internetworking is always welcome, especially in China and Russia, but there are projects such a Geant which already provide european countries with 10 Gb (and more) pipes.

Politically odd? (sorry, OT)

[fiendo]

So let's see, we've got a 100MBps fat pipe direct from the heartland of the U.S. to the largest communist nation in the world, but I still can't get a direct flight from Miami to a communist country 90 miles off our shore???

Re:Yeah but does China REALLY need it?

[bugbread]

Er...don't expect to see anything if you're not at one of the linked institutions. This is not an internet link, it's a private WAN.

Private worldwide networks.

[rice_burners_suck]

Perhaps one of the reasons academic institutions need their own "Internet-2" (so to speak) is to avoid spam and other traffic that goes through the big bad "Internet-1". A private network for academics takes them back to the "good ol'" days when only professionals had access and there wasn't much abuse going on.

Meanwhile, many companies, from small businesses to worldwide corporations, are spending a lot of money to fight spam and other problems. I see a need for many large businesses to get together and build their own network, an "Internet-3" so to speak. They would still have security concerns, but because most of the network's traffic will be business related, the signal to noise ratio will be much better.

With wireless access becoming more popular, I even see the normal consumer providing pieces of the Internet. This network, the original Internet, might eventually become the place where a lot of garbage goes around, while private worldwide networks might eventually keep things clean.

Of course, once all these networks become large, I can see connections made between them, and that will defeat the whole purpose.

Re:Politically odd? (sorry, OT)

[afidel]

As of this week China can be officially declared a FORMER communist country. The upper house introduced a bill that is sure to pass guarenteeing private property rights. This is the end of any idea of communism in China and the beginning of their own brand of socialist capatalism more along the lines of Europe.

Re:Politically odd? (sorry, OT)

[Mantorp]

Cuba is easy to boycott as they don't offer a heck of a lot of things we need/want except good cigars and tourist destinations (both of which you can get elsewhere). If they found oil or developed a booming tech industry overnight the boycott would end faster than you can say Fidel.

Re:Politically odd? (sorry, OT)

[thorgil]

Cuba also grow sugar.

Protecting the US sugar farmers is also a reason for keeping the embargo.

Re:DWDM & OTDM

[Ex-MislTech]

Yes, Long Haul single-mode fiber can carry signal many miles
before needing a inline amplifying module .

Speeds verified here as well :

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber

Before they went bankrupt Global Crossing strung undersea
cable over most of the earth that did not have fiber, but
did have major technologically advanced cities .

Here is some good info on Under Sea cables, and speeds that
were higher than 100 Mbps a LONG time ago .

http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_cables_sea /

Here is a sample map of some of the cable laid by global crossing
before their CEO ripped them off, bankrupted the company, and
ran off with $500 million USD .

http://www.telegeography.com/maps/cable/

Here is a link to inline fiber amplification, even under water .

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier

Now Global Crossing is on the auction block to China even though
some of the DoD netowrk runs on it, LOL .

Hows that for hilarous, the Chinese may own the fiber that
carries the DoD traffic . How screwed up is that .

The US has become the largest sell out in the world .

Re:Politically odd? (sorry, OT)

[JonMartin]

Don't you mean a quasi capitalist totalitarian regime? China is nothing like Europe, and still doesn't respect human rights. If anything, it'll become a model for what corporations want America to be like: a country ruled by the corporations for the corporations with no rights given to the individual.

Close, but it is a country ruled by the military backed elite for the corporations with no rights given to the individual. We have a word for this merging of totalitarianism and corporatism: fascism. The only deviation from the standard definition of fascism is the absence of a single, demigod-like leader (ie. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin). Though it could be argued that the memory of Mao serves this purpose.

Regardless, the person who compared China to Europe is spectacularly stupid. Unless they meant Europe of the 1930s.