News for and about the Internet2 community

[Greg Wood <>]

NCNI, UNC AND WAKE FOREST TO OFFER HIGH PERFORMANCE NETWORK ACCESS TO 
ENTIRE K-20 NORTH CAROLINA EDUCATION COMMUNITY

North Carolina Internet2 members partner to expand access to Abilene 
research network

Research Triangle Park, NC- January 9, 2002- The North Carolina
Networking Initiative (NCNI), which includes Duke University, NC State,
UNC-Chapel Hill and MCNC, along with the 16 campuses of the University
of North Carolina and Wake Forest University have received approval from
the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) to
sponsor connections for the entire education community of North Carolina
to the Abilene research network.

Specifically, the approval means that under Internet2's Sponsored
Education Group Participants (SEGP) program, the state's elementary,
middle, and high schools as well as independent and community colleges,
libraries and museums can connect to the Abilene Internet2 backbone
network. Sponsored participants will connect to Abilene through the
North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) and the NC gigaPop
at speeds of up to 2.4 Gigabits per second. Connections became active
December 20, 2001.

"Participation in the SEGP program is a major step toward enabling the
entire education community within North Carolina to work collaboratively
on delivery of life-long learning opportunities.  This is an important
goal for UNC, and state-wide participation in Internet2 advances our
capabilities," stated Robyn R. Render, vice president and Chief
Information Officer for UNC.

The goal of the SEGP program is to bring Internet2 member institutions,
primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and
museums together to collaborate on new technologies for advancing
education-networking tools, applications, middleware, and content-and to
provide these technologies to innovators, across all educational sectors
in the United States, as quickly and as  "connectedly" as possible.

"The SEGP program allows all of the education community connected to
NCREN to take advantage of the Abilene network. Currently, North
Carolina schools of all types make use of video conferencing. This will
enable collaborative educational programs between North Carolina schools
and their peers in other parts of the country," stated Mark Johnson,
MCNC Director of Networking & Engineering, NCNI Advanced Technical
Staff, and project manager. "In addition, Wake Technical Community
College is establishing a program in the use of high performance
computing which will be able to use Abilene for access to computing
resources outside of NC."

The SEGP program began in early 2001 and, as of mid-December 2001, there
were eighteen state K-12/K-20 networks participating, including
California, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

###

About Internet2(R)
Led by over 180 US universities, working with industry and government,
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 Abilene
Abilene, developed in partnership with Qwest Communications, Cisco
Systems, Nortel Networks and Indiana University, is an Internet2
backbone network providing nationwide high-performance networking
capabilities for over 200 Internet2 universities in all 50 states, the
District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. For more information on Abilene
please see http://www.internet2.edu/abilene/

About WFU
Founded in 1834, Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational
university dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the liberal arts
and in graduate and professional education. Located in Wake Forest,
North Carolina, WFU has a total enrollment of over 6,000 undergraduate,
graduate, professional and allied health students. For additional
information please visit http://www.wfu.edu/

About UNC
The University of North Carolina is a public, multi-campus university
dedicated to the service of North Carolina and its people. It
encompasses the 16 diverse constituent institutions and other
educational, research, and public service organizations.  For additional
information please visit http://www.northcarolina.edu/

About NCNI
The North Carolina Networking Initiative is North Carolina's only
virtual advanced networking community. Comprised of Duke, North Carolina
State University, MCNC and the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, NCNI has established itself as a leader in the national advanced
networking arena and is dedicated to creating and maintaining nationally
recognized infrastructure and research programs. NCNI operates the NC
gigaPop. For additional information on NCNI please see
http://www.ncni.net

Contacts:

Yokima Cureton
MCNC
(919) 248-1907


Greg Wood
Internet2
(202) 331-5360


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