4 February 2004 Washington, D.C. Lightwave -- Abilene, the most advanced research and education network in the United States, has announced the completion of its upgrade from 2.5 Gbits/sec to 10 Gbits/sec. The Internet2 backbone network upgrade quadruples the capacity to more than 15,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection. Abilene partners Indiana University, Juniper Networks, and Qwest Communications provided the equipment and services to successfully implement the network upgrade.
The Abilene upgrade gives researchers, students, and professors at more than 200 Internet2 member institutions a more robust network on which to conduct research. It supports both Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and native IPv6 networks and increases overall network performance.
"With the upgrade now complete, Abilene continues to provide the Internet2 membership with a vehicle for advancement and development through a leading-edge, national network environment," contends Internet2 president and CEO, Douglas Van Houweling.
New routers were installed across the 13,000-route-mile national backbone, and all but one OC-48c circuit was replaced with an OC-192c circuit. In the process, several router locations were changed, but all remain collocated in Qwest points of presence (PoPs).
"This upgrade of Abilene is a significant milestone in achieving the goal of providing advanced network capabilities for teaching and research," reports Indiana University associate vice president for telecommunications, Brian D. Voss. "Indiana University is delighted to be a partner in Abilene, and we are proud to host the Abilene Network Operations Center and to have provided the hands-on expertise for this upgrade of Abilene."
"We are proud to work with Internet2 on upgrading the Abilene Network to 10-Gbits/sec performance with our T-series routing platforms," adds John Jamison, director of Research and Education Markets, Juniper Networks. "We are confident that our products and services will deliver the highest levels of performance to Abilene users on Internet2 campuses underscoring our dedication to meeting the technology demands of higher education."
The Abilene Network is an Internet2 high-performance backbone network that enables the development of advanced Internet applications and the deployment of leading-edge network services to Internet2 universities and research labs across the country. The network has become the most advanced native IP backbone network available to universities participating in Internet2.