News for and about the Internet2 community

["Lauren B. Kallens" <>]

Massachusetts State Education Network To Expand Connectivity with
Internet2's Next-Generation Network

Ann Arbor, MI. - September 27, 2005 - Thousands of children across the state
of Massachusetts now have access to a world-class super-high speed network.
Internet2 today announced that two of its university members, University of
Massachusetts Amherst and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), will
together sponsor the Massachusetts Internet2 K-20 Initiative - consisting of
the Massachusetts Information Turnpike Initiative (MITI), MECnet, a division
of the Merrimack Education Center (MEC), and the Goddard Collaborative - for
connection to Internet2's high performance Abilene network. The Northern
Crossroads GigaPoP (NoX) in Boston, Massachusetts will provide physical
connectivity to Abilene.

Internet2's Sponsored Education Group Participation (SEGP) program enables
its members to sponsor organizations outside of Internet2 in support of
research and education. To date, 34 state education networks have been
connected to Abilene. Until now, the Massachusetts SEGP only connected a
limited number of K-20 institutions. The newly expanded connection will
enable thousands of K-20 students across the state to experience
cutting-edge educational applications and capabilities not available on
today's commercial Internet. 

"Internet2 has worked diligently with state education networks to bring
leading-edge Internet capabilities to the K-20 community across the country.
Since the K-20 Initiative's inception, an incredible number of schools,
libraries, community colleges, and museums have now connected to Internet2's
high-performance network," said Dr. Louis Fox, executive director, Internet2
K-20 Initiative and vice provost, University of Washington. "Through this
program, we have enabled thousands of students and teachers to leverage the
latest in networking technology to collaborate, share experiences and learn
from one another in real-time."

Via their connection to Abilene, students will have access to experiences
like live real-time demonstrations of undersea exploration or take master
music classes from world-renowned instructors with high-bandwidth video
conferencing, or dissect a biology specimen 1000 miles away with remote
instruments available over low-latency networking.

David Gray, vice president and CIO of the five-campus University of
Massachusetts system, which operates the MITI network said, "The Internet2
SEGP provides access to a network and a community that extends collaboration
to private institutions of higher learning and the K-12 community, who would
not otherwise have access to these high-value educational resources."

Today, The Merrimack Education Center (MEC) connects over two thirds of the
K-12 schools in Massachusetts. While not all of the schools have sufficient
bandwidth to take full advantage of the network's capabilities, the number
is growing rapidly. 

"Throughout the state, we are working diligently to upgrade the local
networks to provide our students the most advanced Internet services and
capabilities. Already, MEC and the Lawrence Public Schools have completed a
fiber optic network that provides a high speed communications link for
traditional Internet services and for connectivity to Abilene for the city's
schools," said Karen Catallozzi, MEC's associate executive director of
technical services. "We are excited by the possibilities that this network
will help our students to achieve."

According to Deb Reinemann, science education consultant for Chickering
School in Dover, MA, "Internet2 will bring some new educational
opportunities right into the classroom. We are very excited to be able to
collaborate with other Internet2 participants like the Library of Congress
and the Museum of Science. I was also very pleasantly surprised to see that
so many of the programs running on Internet2's network were actually
developed by the students. What better way to get and keep kids interested
in learning."

This expanded connection to Internet2's network was made possible by the
dedication and collaborative efforts of UMass Amherst, WPI, NoX, MEC,
Goddard Collaborative and MITI.  

"For the last few years, a number of organizations in Massachusetts,
including WPI, NoX, MITI, Merrimack Education Center, Goddard Collaborative
and U Mass Amherst have been concentrating on connecting colleges and K-12s
to Internet2's network," said Tom Lynch, vice president for information
technology and CIO at WPI. "Educators and researchers at institutions like
UMass and WPI have long collaborated with each other and with their peers at
similarly situated institutions like Georgia Tech and UCLA, but the
Internet2 SEGP program allows students and faculty at institutions like
Framingham State or Quinsigamond Community College or Doherty High School to
access the same resources."
        
About the Sponsored Educational Group Participant (SEGP) Program
The SEGP program is intended to allow expanded access to the Internet2
Abilene network for state and regional education networks, through
sponsorship by Internet2 university members. State and regional networks may
include nonprofit and for-profit K-20 educational institutions, museums,
libraries, art galleries, or hospitals that require routine collaboration on
instructional, clinical and/or research projects, services and content with
Internet2 members or with other sponsored participants. The program began in
early 2001 and has since connected 34 state K-12/K-20 networks.

About Internet2
Led by more than 200 U.S. universities, working with industry and
government, Internet2 develops and deploys advanced network applications and
technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of
tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 recreates the partnerships among academia,
industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy.
For more information about Internet2, visit: http://www.internet2.edu/.

CONTACT:  
Lauren Kallens
Internet2

202.331.5345

Paul Keleher
Chairman
Goddard Collaborative
508-831-6632


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