High-Speed Web Surfers Turn to Internet2

KingFishKingFish
edited May 2005 in Science & Tech
A few of the very lucky ones are getting to samnple the next generation in internet access that is one thousand to ten thousand times as fast as a typical broadband connection.
Tired of watching that sluggish stripe crawl across their screens whenever they download data, college kids nationwide are swapping information over a private computer network — at speeds most of us can only begin to imagine.

Schools, scientists and dozens of companies are paying a fee to a nonprofit organization called Internet2 for the privilege of ultra-quick connections.

"Internet2 is a thousand to 10,000 times faster than the networks that people typically have in their homes," said CEO Doug Van Houweling, who runs the business in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The network is so fast that downloading an entire feature-length film isn't a matter of hours or days, but mere minutes or even seconds.

"There's enough speed to do that and a lot of other things at the same time ... you can't do that with the regular public Internet," said Van Houweling.

The network is also giving academic research a boost. At the University of Illinois, students use the Internet2 to transfer images from a sophisticated visualization lab.

"We're now working on very high-tech, high-definition screens that are used essentially for scientific discovery," said Tom DeFanti, who does research at the university's Chicago campus.

And Internet2 could even help bring the regular Web up to speed. Corporate users like Apple and Microsoft are studying its applications to develop new tools that would make the Internet faster for the general public.
Submitted by: profdlp

Source: FoxNews

Comments

  • miinkiemiinkie UK
    edited May 2005
    Gimme gimme!
    Wonder how long that will take to go commercial
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    When I read this it made me think that we might someday look back at todays broadband and view it the way we now think of 300 baud.
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    edited May 2005
    U of I eh? Hmm... how about in the dorms :)
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited May 2005
    yeah, just think of "Shane's World" ten thousand times faster!
  • RADARADA Apple Valley, CA Member
    edited May 2005
    KingFish wrote:
    yeah, just think of "Shane's World" ten thousand times faster!


    LOL! Bad Kingfish, you brought pron into the conversation before I did...............ooppps! Did I say that? Meant to think it............ ;D
  • tcithtcith Sydney, Australia Member
    edited May 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    When I read this it made me think that we might someday look back at todays broadband and view it the way we now think of 300 baud.

    I remember the day I upgraded my 300 baud accoustic coupler modem to a 1200 baud serial port modem and thought "wow, this blistering speed is awesome"

    just prior to this I had upgraded my 286 with 20Mb HDD and 2Mb of RAM (which when I bought it was cutting edge) to a 386 with 16Mb (yes an unbelievable 16Mb) and an 80Mb HDD and was thinking "man I am never going to be able to fill this hard drive it's so huge"

    *SIGH*

    My home connection of 3Mb now is too slow for me and my P4 3.02 with 1GB of Ram and and ATI 850 graphics card and two 160Gb ata HDD's could still be improved ... *double SIGH*
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