News for and about the Internet2 community

["Greg Wood" <>]

Brazil and United States Collaborate on Advanced Internet Technologies

Washington, DC, May 24, 2000 - The Rede Nacional de Pesquisa (RNP) and
Internet2, a consortium led by over 170 US universities working to
accelerate the development of the Internet, have signed an agreement to
collaborate on the development and deployment of advanced Internet
technologies and applications between US and Brazilian research and
education communities.

"In 1997, RNP began an initiative to accelerate the development of the
Internet in Brazil. Since then, it has implemented 14 high performance
metropolitan networks, involving more than 70 institutions, anticipating the
availableness of these services nationwide. RNP is now building a Brazilian
high performance backbone which will allow our education and research
institutions to collaborate with the Internet2 project," said José Luiz
Ribeiro Filho, project manager of RNP.

"We look forward to working with RNP to advance international networking,"
said Douglas Van Houweling, President and CEO of Internet2. "Collaboration
among our respective member institutions will not only enable research and
education between our two countries, but will also help expand the
capabilities of the global commercial Internet."

As part of the agreement, RNP and Internet2 will connect their respective
networks. RNP is developing RNP2, a high-performance national network in
Brazil to interconnect state and metropolitan networks. In the US, Internet2
members use the very high performance Backbone Network Service provided
under cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation and MCI
WorldCom and Abilene, the high-performance network developed by Internet2
members in cooperation with Qwest Communications, Cisco Systems, Nortel
Networks and Indiana University.

"We are now looking at promoting collaborative work between national and US
institutions that are involved in RNP2 and Internet2 projects respectively
to join expertise and foster the development of new technologies for
advanced applications in both countries," stated Jose Luiz Ribeiro Filho.

About Internet2(r)
Internet2 is developing and deploying advanced network applications and
technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of
tomorrow’s Internet. Internet2 recreates the partnership of academia,
industry and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy.
For more information about Internet2, see:
http://www.internet2.edu/

About RNP
RNP has been active in the Brazilian development of Internet technology
since 1991, consolidating the national backbone and interconnecting the
academic community. Following in the footsteps of academic networks all over
the world and taking part in a unified strategy to consolidate the
Information Society in Brazil, RNP is striving to promote the upgrade of the
Brazilian
academic network with the creation of a new high-performance backbone, the
RNP2. For more information about RNP, see: http://www.rnp.br/

Contacts
Marta Leal Ferreira
Rede Nacional de Pesquisa
+55 (21) 2747445


Greg Wood
Internet2
+1 (202) 331-5360