NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

 


Media contact:                                       February 26, 1998 
Beth Gaston                                               NSF PR 98-13 
(703) 306-1070/egaston@nsf.gov

NSF APPROVES 29 NEW CONNECTIONS TO HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTER NETWORK

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today that  29 
additional institutions will be connected to the very high performance 
Backbone Network Service (vBNS), allowing scientists and engineers 
across the country to collaborate and share powerful computing and 
information resources.  This latest round of connections brings the 
total number of institutions approved for connections to 92.

The vBNS is a crucial player in the president's Next Generation 
Internet and is the initial interconnect for Internet2 member 
institutions.

"By building an Internet that is faster and more advanced, we can 
keep the United States at the cutting edge of Internet technology, and 
explore new applications in distance learning, telemedicine, and 
scientific research," said President Clinton.

The NSF will make more connections-up to 150 institutions-should 
the Congress continue to support NSF's role in the Next Generation 
Internet (NGI) initiative.  NSF's fiscal 1998 appropriation bill 
directs NSF to use $23 million of the domain name intellectual 
infrastructure fund toward Next Generation Internet activities.  
However a preliminary injunction in a pending lawsuit (William Thomas, 
et al, v. Network Solutions and National Science Foundation) currently 
prevents NSF from spending this money.  For FY 99, NSF has requested 
another $25 million for NGI activities.

"The vBNS is a facility-like a laboratory or a supercomputer 
center-that will accelerate science in all disciplines as well as push 
the limits of networking technology and applications," said George 
Strawn, director of NSF's Advanced Networking Infrastructure and 
Research division.

The vBNS, begun in 1995, is an investment of  $50 million in a 
five-year project with MCI Telecommunications Corporation.  
Connections are evaluated by a peer review process and are approved 
based on scientific and technical merit.

The sophisticated telecommunications network currently runs at 
622 million bits per second and is expected to operate at 2.4 gigabits 
per second (2,400 mbps) by the year 2000.  By comparison, the average 
home modem transmits 28,800 bits per second.  The vBNS is expected to 
always be several steps ahead of commercially available networking. 

This large capacity allows scientists to collect and share large 
amounts of data, to collaborate better across large distances, and to 
run complex equipment from remote sites.  The ability to share data 
and equipment helps scientists studying everything from atoms to 
galaxies, and  to remotely run simulations of science from environment 
to the beating heart. 

Most institutions receive High Performance Connections grants of 
up to $350,000 from NSF over two years for their connections to offset 
the cost of linking from their sites to the vBNS backbone. NSF is 
spending a total of $9,022,859 for this round of connections grants.