News for and about the Internet2 community

[Todd Sedmak <>]

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

Groups to Deploy 100G Networking Capabilities across West Coast, Share 
Infrastructure, and Work on Network Initiatives

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Feb. 7, 2012 — 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, Internet2, 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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Media Contacts:

Todd Sedmak, Internet2
(202) 331-5373 • 


Janis Cortese, CENIC
(714) 220-3454 • 


Amy Philipson, PNWGP
(206) 310-0097 • 



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