Internet2, a project to bypass the congested public Internet and link research institutions via a high-speed network, takes its first big step forward this month with the launch of the Abilene test-bed. Abilene will initially link 70 research institutions with 13,000 miles of fiber-optic cable looped between New York and Seattle and operating at 2.4G bits per second. Designed to serve the academic research community, Internet2 will not be accessible to the general public, but new technologies developed and tested on the network will certainly eventually find their way to ordinary end-users. The main Internet2 site offers a project overview, information on participants and goals, notices of Internet2 events, and news and highlights. The site also contains links to information on Abilene's sister projects: I2-DSI (Distributed Storage Infrastructure) and I2-DVN (Digital Video Network).
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