Internet2 Gets a New Backbone

wrong_fuel writes "A few of you know that Internet2 and NLR (National Lambda Rail) have been in talks for some time regarding a merger of the two networks. Those talks have fallen apart and Internet2's contracts with Qwest communications had already been allowed to lapse. Internet2 has now reached an agreement with an unnamed carrier for its next generation backbone. The new network will likely be named later this year (the old one was referred to as "Abilene") and current member Universities will be migrated off of Abilene by September 2007."

Comments

odds on..

[yakumo.unr]

Whats the odds it's google with all that dark fiber?

Re:odds on..

[doesitmakeitsick]

Some interesting speculation as to why Google's purchasing a bunch of dark fiber: The probable answer lies in one of Google's underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn't just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.

Re:odds on..

[Agent Green]

I don't think Google actually "owns" the fiber, per-se, but rather has a long-term locked-in lease. Fiber is hideously expensive to just deploy simply (think about zoning, digsafe, the actual cable, optical hardware and repeaters, etc.).

If I had to wager a bet, I'd say that it's probably Level 3, based on their nationwide network and tremendous capacity capability since the whole thing is deployed in conduits ... most of which are still empty.

Re:odds on..

[s16le]

Google plans to index the offline world as well, including supermarkets and shops. They'll need fiber going into these shops for live spidering and possibly results. It seems they have determined costs can be reduced through forward intergration(owning the last mile).

Re:odds on..

[stoney27]

On a side note did you know that the shipping container turned 50 this month.

Yes useless trivia but that is my roll in life...

-S

Re:odds on..

[sirius sam]

Google is reviewing bids from tech vendors to build a nationwide optical DWDM network- one theoretically capable of terabit speeds. check this out Google's need for bandwidth capacity is increasing rapidly. It currently pays the traditional telecom firms like AT&T who own the long-haul fiber lines a premium for bandwidth. Building its own data transfer network could be seen as a cost savings solution, especially as it could cost as little as $100million (in new spending) to construct one. Google already owns fiber throughout North America and around the world. It just needs to connect it all together.

Sorry if this is getting offtopic.

Re:odds on..

[cowscows]

Perhaps this is just hopeful optimism trying to overtake depressing pessimism, but maybe Google buying up all that fiber will really pay off when the telcos are successful in getting the government to let them destroy the "network neutrality." Already some telcos are crowing about how Google is making money off of the telco's data networks, and they want a bigger piece of that pie.

If that happens, and the common carriers start charging different online companies special fees for carrying their traffic, then it'd certainly be in Google's best interest to send as much data around on their own network, and avoid the telco's lines as much as possible. And even further down the line, after all the consumers are pissed off about how much the cable companies have messed up our internet, Google can be the one to finally start rolling out that fiber to the home we've all been hearing so much about, create their own isp that respects network neutrality, and steal a whole bunch of marketshare from the jerkass telecos.

Unnamed provider

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants to speculate that it is Google?

Would the new bill apply to any internetwork?

[chrispycreeme]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/23/13 48250&tid=95

For reference.

I'm wondering. Would the bill apply to Internet2? Would it apply to any IP based network? Obviously not all IP networks are The Internet. At what point could educational establishments along with sympathetic corportations like Google and sites like slashdot start their own internetwork and leave the tiered internet crowd without google, ebay, amazon or any of the geeks who actually make the internet an interesting place to be? Wouldn't customers sign up for google's internet rather than at&t's?

Would the law apply to the new internetwork?

Internet2 the internet of the future certa 1996

[masterpenguin]

Internet2 was announced in October 1996, now 10 years later it still seems to be poorly developed. Internet2 was going to be the net of the future. Now it is the future, and we still have a significant population unable to get broadband (I don't consider satalite internet feasable), and its still priced too high for other users.

I'm all for advancing these new technologys, but too often it is forgotten that portions of the population can't even subscribe to an aging technology.

The digital divide is still alive and well unfortunally.

Re:Internet2 the internet of the future certa 1996

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet2 was never designed to bring broadband to the masses. I have no clue why you thought it was.

The technology to do so already exists. The barrier is an economic one.

Re:Internet2 the internet of the future certa 1996

[A beautiful mind]

The barrier is a political/greed-based one.

Otherwise please tell me how Japan managed their 100mbit/1gbit fiber to their users or if you want to bore us with the "but but Japan is much smaller and that can't be done in the USA" myth, then explain how Sweden - a huge country with relatively low population count - managed to get fibre to even small villages god knows where (A friend of mine in Sweden has fiber in a village of 500 people and according to him its not an exceptional thing).

Re:Internet2 the internet of the future certa 1996

[LnxAddct]

What are you on? I2 was never about being the "new" internet, it was about being a parallel internet that doesn't have the cruft and speed problems of the internet. I2 has been a huge success in any major university and a few R&D companies. The speeds are just outrageous, and just about every technology related university has it set up to automatically switch over I2 if its possible for you to connect over it. If I'm looking for an iso of some distribution, and I find a university mirroring it, I'll download it and the network will automatically toss my packets over I2. It is also unbeatable for collaborative research, you just can't compare.
Regards,
Steve

Re:I have to say...

[Zedrick]

It's Telia in Sweden, I've got a 100Mb connection with them. It's hard finding interesting stuff to download in full speed from single sources, but it's really convenient when downloading torrents from multiple seeders. Only problem is that I now have way too many TV-series to keep up with, and my fast connection means that I have to spend a lot of time keeping my FTP up to date, so that friends can download the latest 0-day stuff from me right after it's released.

Sigh. Life is hard.

Why do Universities join Internet2?

[mintech]

I work for a University and we used to be a member of Internet2. While it was nice to have high-speed connections to other members of the Internet2, we quit because of the high costs and we could not justify the costs for a small University with less than 5,000 students.

It costs at least $300,000 minimum per year to join Internet2. The fees are as follows:

$30,000 Internet2 Membership fee (http://members.internet2.edu/Member-Dues.html)
$220,000 Abilene Membership fee for OC-12 (http://abilene.internet2.edu/community/fees/index .html)

Additional fees are assessed depending on which GigaPop you would be connected to (http://eng.internet2.edu/gigapoplist.html). The quote I had to become a member with one Gigapop was approximately $75,000 an year, plus local loop costs.

It's very difficult for us, and probably most Universities, to justify spending over $300,000 a year to become a member of Internet2. Until Internet2 can be better managed and lower costs, I do not foresee Internet2 becoming popular anytime soon.

Re:No, it's not.

[drew]

All well and good.

Now explain to me why, in even the most densely populated U.S. cities, the fastest available residential broadband is 3MB DSL or 5MB cable, and you cant't get any broadband for less than $55/month (total cost- those $29.99/month DSL packages you can get from your local phone company don't count because you can only get them if you are spending at least $35 a month on your phone bill.)

Hmmm?

I'd believe your arguments if the biggest U.S. cities had broadband access equivalent to Japan or Sweden or any number of other countries, but even in the areas that are comparable, we're years behind.