[February 07, 2012]

CENIC, Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and Internet2 Announce Major, Long-Term Collaboration

CENIC, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, (PNWGP), and Internet2 today announced plans for a major, long-term collaboration to deploy 100 Gigabit per second (Gbps) networking capabilities across the entire West Coast of the United States, to share a common optical networking infrastructure, and to work on many network-based initiatives.

This shared infrastructure, using PNWGP and CENIC fiber-optic cable and Internet2's new Ciena optical system, will initially support the West Coast portion of Internet2's new nationwide backbone network and the advanced Research & Education (R&E) peering and exchange services provided by CENIC and PNWGP. This long-term collaboration includes the Pacific Wave international distributed exchange, whose major exchange and access points in Seattle and Los Angeles are being interconnected with 100 Gbps capacity to support interconnections and transport at 100 Gbps speeds. Twenty-seven networks representing more than 40 countries throughout the Pacific Rim, the Americas, and the Middle East connect to one another via Pacific Wave.

"These 100 Gbps network interconnection and transit capabilities will enable our U.S. and international research partners to achieve the performance and service capabilities required by next generation research initiatives," noted Louis Fox, President and CEO of CENIC.

"This is an extraordinary step forward in cooperation and mutual commitment between Internet2 and two R&E technology leaders, PNWGP and CENIC," said Dave Lambert, CEO of Internet2. "We will work together to best and most cost-effectively serve our overall R&E community with next generation capabilities and services."

"By partnering on this infrastructure, we are able to share our resources and expertise and further leverage our long-term reliance upon Internet2 and also the proven Internet2 network operations center to achieve reliable, ultra-high-performance networking which is affordable for our members and partners," said Amy Philipson, Executive Director of PNWGP.

Internet2, CENIC, and PNWGP also will provide advanced broadband network capabilities, services, content, and applications to expand the U.S. Unified Community Anchor Network's (U.S. UCAN) western community and to existing participants in all three organizations' collective R&E networks.

Ron Johnson, chair, Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and Stephen Wolff, chief technology officer, Interet2, both of whose involvements in the Internet date back to the early days of ARPAnet and NSFnet, praised this new partnership and network fabric. Johnson noted that this "establishes the evolved relationship between our organizations as well as the directly shared technical platform that we have all been seeking. This will enable the R&E communities we serve both to pursue the next generation of innovations enabled by our networks, apps, and content, and to extend them for even broader impact to other key constituencies." Wolff echoed these views, saying, "thanks to this partnership, there will be many new opportunities for collaboration in the service of our communities and in the advancement of technology."

About Internet2 • www.internet2.edu

Internet2, created and led by U.S. research universities, is one of the world's most advanced networking consortia for global researchers and scientists, who develop breakthrough Internet technologies and applications and spark tomorrow's essential innovations. Internet2 consists of more than 350 U.S. universities; corporations; government agencies; laboratories; higher learning; other major national, regional, and state research and education networks; and organizations representing more than 50 countries. Established by Internet2 in 2011, U.S. UCAN is a national project dedicated to ensuring community anchor institutions, including public libraries, schools, community colleges, research parks, public safety, and health care institutions, have access to advanced broadband capabilities. Internet2 is a registered trademark.

About CENIC • www.cenic.org

California's education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students.

CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state's K-20 educational institutions are connected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with which CENIC's Associate researchers and educators are engaged.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop • www.pnw-gigapop.net

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is a not-for-profit organization whose team brought the original Internet to the Northwest in the 80's, and which today provides the full range of cost-effective, reliable, broadband high-performance networking, interconnection and peering, and related collaboration mechanisms needed to help support the missions of our diverse membership, including the research, education, medical, cultural, government, and leading technology organizations throughout the Pacific-Northwestern USA and also internationally across the Pacific Rim via Pacific Wave.

About Pacific Wave • www.pacificwave.net

Pacific Wave is a state-of-the-art distributed international peering and exchange facility, which spans the West Coast of the USA including major interconnected points of presence in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles and is designed to serve research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and the world. Pacific Wave enhances research and education network capabilities by increasing network efficiency, reducing latency, increasing throughput, and reducing costs. Pacific Wave is a joint project between CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and is operated in collaboration with the University of Southern California and the University of Washington.

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