Internet 2

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The number of Internet accounts in the United States is expected to mushroom to approximately 77.5 million by the year 2002. About 16 million of these accounts will access the Internet through high-speed DSL or cable connections. (Source: Forrester Research) These high-speed connections are potentially 50 times faster than the typical 56-kbps modem. Additionally, applications such as telephony, videoconferencing, and online gaming are becoming more popular. These factors have contributed to a ravenous demand for bandwidth and service reliability over the Internet. The current Internet cannot keep pace with this demand. It is this bandwidth and reliability crisis that gave rise to Internet2.

Internet2 is a nationwide initiative among universities, corporations and the government to build a high-speed, reliable, less congested information superhighway in North America. Internet2 is currently restricted to academic and government research only. The network serves as a platform for broadband network applications, digital libraries, and virtual laboratories. The University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development oversees the project. It is supported through a consortium of over 100 member universities, corporate partners, and affiliate members.

Internet2 began in October 1996 through a meeting in Chicago of representatives from 34 universities. These representatives adopted goals for the project, committed resources from their institutions, and pledged initial funding. A couple of months after the October meeting, the project was formally adopted as part of the White House’s Next Generation Internet initiative. During his February 1997 State of the Union message, President Clinton pledged government support to a "second generation of the Internet so that our leading universities and national laboratories can communicate in speeds 1,000 times faster than today."

According to the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, the mission of Internet2 is:

Facilitate and coordinate the development, deployment, operation, and technology transfer of advanced, network-based applications and network services to further U.S. leadership in research and higher education and accelerate the availability of new services and applications on the Internet.

Its goals are threefold:

1. Enable a new generation of applications
2. Recreate a leading edge research and education network capability
3. Transfer new capabilities to the global production Internet

Send mail to dallas_romanowski@bus.emory.edu with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: October 29, 1999