Please take a few moments to complete this short survey, prepared by MAGPI, Internet2, and the Association of African Universities.  The data collected will provide a snapshot of current and proposed activity between institutions around the world and their collaborators across the continent of Africa.  We will then use this information to make government and telecommunications providers aware of the need to build low cost infrastructure across geographic and political boundaries as a means of fostering development in research, education, and the global economy. Results will be shared during the Africa Regional Interest Group at the Spring Internet2 Member Meeting, 29 April 2010. 

Internet2 is pleased to announce our newest international partnership with the Nepal Research and Education Network (NREN). NREN was established as a knowledge center to support advanced research and education in Nepal. The network covers challenging terrain and extreme temperatures, and is already assisting in research such as the monitoring of glacial lakes and altitude sickness.  We look forward to future collaborations between our organizations!

The Chinese-American Networking Symposium is celebrating its 10th anniversary and we would like you to celebrate with us.  Whether you have participated in past events, have a campus in China, or are just interested in learning more about the state of research & education networking in China, CANS 2009 is the place to be!

Internet2, in partnership with CSTNet, our host, CERNET, and CAST-USA, is pleased to announce this year’s Chinese-American Networking Symposium to be held 3-5 December in Beijing, China. Networking experts from both China and the United States will gather at CANS to discuss new ideas and advancements in networking technologies. In keeping with our focus on working together to promote interoperability, the 2009 Symposium theme is A Decade of Collaboration: Looking back, looking forward. 

Would you like to receive news about Internet2 international activities hot off the presses?  Subscribe to the new International Blog. It will provide informative updates for and about the Internet2 members and international partners who make up the Internet2 international community.

Subscribe to the Blog here by clicking "Start watching this space" in the left navigation bar to receive new postings by email.  You can also view the latest Blog additions in your RSS reader by selecting your preferred delivery option on this page.  To connect directly to the International Blog, click here.  If you would like to be a guest blogger please let us know! 

Internet2 is pleased to announce a new international partnership with the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN). The partnership was made official in a signing ceremony during the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting when Doug Van Houweling, President & CEO of Internet2, and Kenneth Sylvester, CEO of CKLN, signed a Memorandum of Understanding.  CKLN is working toward establishing C@ribNET, a unified research and education network which will connect more than 15 countries in the Caribbean region.  This advanced, high bandwidth, backbone network will bridge the digital divide that currently exists in the region.  We look forward to future collaborations between our organizations!

On April 6, Internet2 netcast a meeting on the National Science Foundation’s IRNC program from the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University. We welcome continued input to the discussion via the Internet2 collaboration space. If you were unable to attend, click here to view the presentations. 

The Internet2 community relies greatly on IRNC-funded link projects which interconnect users of the Internet2 Network with collaborators, scientific instruments, data, teaching resources, remote campuses, cultural institutions, clinical sites, and many other resources around the world.

Congratulations George McLaughlin!  According to the formal citation, "On Australia Day, 26 January 2009, George Millar McLAUGHLIN of Tarago NSW was appointed by the Governor-General as a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia, for service to the information technology sector through a range of advisory roles with national and international educational, research and infrastructure organisations, particularly Australia's Academic and Research Network.”  For his part, George contends "this acknowledgement needs to be put in context, and the real achievers to be recognised are:
(i) just over a handful of technically expert, dedicated and imaginative people who worked with me from 1996 until a few years ago, and…
(ii) the friends and colleagues around the world who mentored and supported us…and who have helped and supported me personally in many ways since then."

George has been instrumental in getting many a NREN up and running, and was the Executive Director of AARNET, the Australian R&E network that provides advanced network services to the Australian education and research community, who signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Internet2 in 1999. More recently, George has been focusing on developing NRENs and inter-NREN connectivity and collaboration in South Asia and the Asia Pacific.

The reach of the Internet2 Network has been expanded!  A dedicated R&E connection to Pakistan is now available. This new connectivity will enable Pakistani scientists from 60 universities and institutes, linked via the Pakistan Education Research Network (PERN), to collaborate with their international peers across the globe.  The link was put in place with support from the NSF-funded TransPAC2 project, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Pakistan, and the EC-funded TEIN2 network.  Further details can be found here.

This new connection between Pakistan and the United States was “inaugurated” during the Internet2 Emerging National Research & Education Network (NREN) Special Interest Group (SIG) at the Fall 2008 Internet2 Member Meeting held in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Representatives from three sites in Pakistan - the HEC, the National Centre for Physics in Islamabad, and NWFP University of Engineering & Technology in Peshawar, participated remotely in the meeting. Virtual participants from Pakistan were joined by those from several other countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Palestine, and Sweden.

Does your institution have a campus in China?  Are you interested in learning more about the state of research & education networking in China?  Then the 2008 Chinese-American Networking Symposium is the place to be!  

Internet2, in partnership with CAST-USA, CERNET, CSTNet, and host site Indiana University, is pleased to announce this year’s Chinese-American Networking Symposium will be held 20-22 October 2008 in Indianapolis, IN. Networking experts from both China and the United States will gather at CANS to discuss new ideas and advancements in networking technologies. In keeping with the 2008 Olympic Games being hosted in Beijing, this year's CANS theme of One World One Network focuses on working together to promote interoperability along with seamless networking and collaboration.  Click here to register for CANS 2008. 

The Internet2 Emerging Research & Education Network Special Interest Group (NREN SIG) is pleased to announce the formation of a new regional interest group focusing on the Middle East, and to welcome Johnathon Chapman, CIO at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, as its Chair. The regional interest group met for the first time during Internet2's Spring 2008 Member Meeting, and has begun to exchange information via the Middle East Interest mailing list.To learn about advanced networking activities and challenges in the Middle East and to contribute ideas, please visit the regional wiki at https://wiki.internet2.edu:443/confluence/x/8Q

The University of Hawaii, in partnership with Internet2 and TransPAC2, hosted the 25^th Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) meeting 20-25 January, 2008 in conjunction with the ESnet and Internet2 Joint Techs Workshop.The event was part of the third Techs in Paradise (TIP) event co-sponsored internationally to bring together the Asia-Pacific and North American communities for a week of meetings, workshops, and in-person collaboration. In addition to the APAN Meeting and the Joint Techs/ESCC Workshop, TIP2008 included meetings of the Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF), the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF), TransPAC2 and the Hawaii Intranet Consortium, as well as a Network Performance Workshop and a Dynamic Circuit Network Workshop.

Project updates and trends in advanced networking were highlighted throughout the week. APAN topics of interest included talks about TEIN2, CNGI and CERNET2, Everest Imja Lake Project, and AKARI. To view a specific presentation please visit the Jt. Techs/APAN Program. The 26^th APAN Meeting will be held 4-8 August, 2008 in Queenstown, New Zealand.

On October 11, 2007, Internet2 and Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), the national research and education networking organization of Brazil, signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate international telehealth and telemedicine collaborations. The new MOU builds on the organizations' existing long-term networking partnership that was established in 2000. It provides a pathway for the Internet2 and RNP communities to jointly lead and collaborate on the development of next-generation telemedicine and telehealth technologies and applications. In doing so, the organizations hope to accelerate the adoption of these important technologies within the U.S and Brazil as well as to promote and encourage the continued interconnection of advanced networks around the world in support of telemedicine and telehealth.

RNP is today leading a new project called Rede Universitária de Telemedicina (RUTE). Funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, the project seeks to build and update the communication infrastructure of 57 university hospitals that are connected throughout Brazil with the goal of enabling all participating hospitals to use the RNP network to run telemedicine and telehealth applications including video conferencing for information exchange, second opinion, continuous education and web conferencing.

On 2 February 2007, the New World Symphony in Miami rehearsed pieces by French composers Mr. Henri Dutilleux and Marc-André Dalbavie, while the composers participated live from IRCAM Paris. This transatlantic rehearsal, a -virtual concert room,- enabled live exchanges between musicians in Miami and the composers in Paris via RENATER-4 in France, GEANT2 in Europe, and Internet2's Network. These advanced reasearch and education networks provided the bandwidth and quality of service to ensure high quality audio and video using DVTS (Digital Video Transport System) technology. The DVTS software is maintained by the WIDE Project - a Japanese research consortium and Internet2 international partner. DVTS is not based on data compression, which means it is a key technology when both low latency and CD audio quality are required, in applications like distance music learning or a distributed rehearsal involving different regions of the world.

For the past two years, Internet2 has been working closely with GÉANT2 and ESnet to develop perfSONAR, a measurement architecture and supporting tools that will facilitate performance testing across national boundaries. For the past two years, engineers from many of Europe's National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) have worked with Internet2 and ESnet engineers to bring this project to its first official code release. At this time, perfSONAR includes a measurement archive, from which any authorized end-user can request data, and a lookup service to discover all the locations of such archives. The second perfSONAR release, expected later this year, will include measurement point(s) and visualization tools. Information on this project, including a complete list of partner institutions, can be found at http://www.perfsonar.net/.

In late July, MYREN, the Malaysian educational network with a current membership of fourteen universities and institutions of higher learning, became an international partner of Internet2. This partnership was announced on 8 August during Malaysia's first MYREN Open Day, focusing on collaborative research in tele-surgery and e-culture. Through the agreement, MYREN looks forward to increased collaboration and networking opportunities with Internet2’s membership. Institutions connected to MYREN are already reachable by institutions on Internet2's Abilene network, through the NSF funded TransPAC2 link to the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) and the Trans-Eurasia Information Network 2 (TEIN2) link largely funded by the European Commission.

There are currently five Research Areas / Working Groups within MYREN which function to focus the consultative and collaborative efforts of various researchers in the MYREN community. They are: 1) Network Research, 2) IPv6 Research, 3) e-Research comprising of eCulture, Bioinformatics, Medical Informatics, Software Engineering, 4) Multimedia comprising Virtual Reality, Immersive Technology, E-Learning, Interface Design & Ambient Intelligence and 5) Knowledge Management & Information Retrieval.

If you are interested in collaborating in one of these areas, please contact Heather Boyles.

Internet2 has formed a partnership with ERNET and C-DAC, the leading research and education networking organizations in India. The partnership was made official February 18 in an MoU signing ceremony at a Mumbai workshop titled "Moving India into the Global Community through Advanced Networking: Science, Education and the Knowledge Economy."

The new partnership will enable wider collaboration between ERNET, C-DAC and the global research and education community. In particular, the agreement is a step toward high-performance Internet connectivity between the US and India. C-DAC (the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) and ERNET (Education and Research Network) are also working toward establishing a single, unified national research and education network (NREN), in accordance with the growing international consensus that creating NRENs is key to the development of research and education networking worldwide. C-DAC's GARUDA initiative is a major step in this direction.

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Internet2 members OARNET, the Ohio State University (OSU), the World Bank and Internet2 Commons staff worked together to deliver a three hour Internet2 Commons Site Coordinator videoconference training course to 43 individuals in seven African countries. Individuals from Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast received virtual instruction from OSU staff Megan Troyer and Bob Dixon, with technical support by Gabe Moulton, also at OSU. The training itself was conducted via high-quality video conferencing, with participants joining in-country via the World Bank's Global Distance Learning Network (GDLN) centers. Thanks to the World Bank's connectivity to Internet2's Abilene, Ohio State was able to directly link with the African GDLN centers on the World Bank's VSAT network.

The course covered the basics of videoconferencing, including an overview of the components of an H.323 network, guidance on setting up equipment, instruction for participating in a conference, and appropriate videoconference etiquette. Both trainers and trainees alike learned from the experience, sharing information about technical and societal challenges. Given the success of this initial training, a second is being planned in French. According to Dixon, "The audience was very serious, of varying knowledge levels and backgrounds (managers and technicians), and asked many questions. The course went very well, and was much appreciated."

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On 17 January, 2006, Internet2 members and staff participated in a National Science Foundation sponsored workshop, "A Digital Library of the Middle East," hosted by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt.

Participants worked collaboratively to discuss issues and identify processes, requirements and actions needed for the development of a large-scale, dynamic, distributed digital repository of resources on and about the Middle East, with a focus on cultural heritage. A primary goal of the workshop was to develop a vision and mission statement for a digital library of the Middle East and to identify key constituents in a community of practice that can ensure realization. Findings will be incorporated in a report that can inform grant-making agencies and other potential funders of a variety of interrelated activities that will develop and sustain the digital library, including content development, management structures, networked infrastructure, research and educational applications, and education of digital managers and users.

Internet2 partners and members involved in this workshop included: the U.S. Library of Congress; the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Johns Hopkins University; UCLA; Sun Microsystems; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Pittsburgh; Yale University; Florida International University; Harvard University Art Museums; University of Oregon. Internet2's international partners in Egypt - the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Egyptian Universities Network (EUN) and the Egyptian National Science and Technology Network (ENSTINET) participated in the meeting as well and will be improving connectivity for the Bibliotheca and other research and education institutions in Egypt through their 155Mbps link to New York. Other event organizers include the US/Egypt Joint Fund, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

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The new International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program, from the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded projects towards international network links connecting the US with foreign science and engineering communities. IRNC follows the NSF's High-Performance International Internet Services (HPIIS) program. IRNC awards include:

• Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development (GLORIAD)
• TransPAC2
• TransLight/Pacific Wave
• TransLight/StarLight
• Western Hemisphere Research and Education Networks (WHREN)

Internet2 has recently established a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). MCIT will interconnect the Egyptian research and education networks, which include the Egyptian Universities Network (EUN), and the Egyptian National Scientific and Technical Information Network (ENSTINET). This MoU will enable Egypt to connect to the global advanced R&E networking community, in addition to its recently established connection to GEANT via the EUMEDCONNECT project. EUN/ENSTINET now connects to the US Internet2 advanced networking infrastructure via the MAN LAN international exchange point located in New York City.

July 21, 2005

The 2005 GARR conference in Pisa, Italy—hosted by Garr, the Italian Academic and Research Network—invited members of the Internet2 Arts and Humanities community to help stretch the boundries of technology-enabled, simultaneous, remote learning and teaching. Hosted in Pisa from 10-13 May 2005, the conference was attended by 300 network specialists from the all over Europe who came to report on national and international research and achievements, and to explore the possibilities a ubiquitous network can bring to research, learning, and culture.

Working with the hosts at GARR, the team created virtual studio space for viola maestro, Hillary Herndon, at the New World Symphony, and viola student, Anna Simeone, from the Conservatory of Music in Pisa to meet for a class. Bridging languages through translators and distance through technology, the broadcast was the first of its kind between Europe and the US. Two laptop computers were used: one receiving the 30 Mbps NTSC signal from Miami and converting it to PAL, the other sending the outgoing PAL signal to Miami at 30 Mbps where it was decoded running DVTS software resulting in an aggregate bandwidth of 60 Mbps. In addition to the conference attendees on site, 170 viewers attended by netcast. Among the enthused attendees was the Principal of the Trieste Conservatoria who referred to the demonstration as "the most astonishing experience he had ever had" and proposed several future applications for his students.

While both geographic and language barriers were being erased, the enabling technology ultimately dropped away to reveal... a student, a teacher, and the intricacies of a music lesson. Internet2 would like to thank the following participants for their assistance in this demonstration, Claudio Allocchio, GARR; Stefano Zani, INFN Multimedia Group/GARR Netcast; Fabio Bisi, INFN Multimedia Group/GARR Netcast; Roberto Giacomelli, INFN Multimedia Group/GARR Netcast; Tom Snook, New World Symphony; Andrew Hollis, New World Symphony and Phil Ribeiro, New World Symphony.

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The Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF), along with several partners, has received a planning grant from the National Science Foundation to propose very high speed Internet extensions, on the order of 10 Gbps, to connect the academic, research, health and non-governmental organization (NGO) communities in African countries to the rest of the world. Such connections would provide African universities and medical centers connectivity equivalent to the best available to comparable institutions in the United States. To win the large grant that would allow the network connection to be implemented, the team that won the NSF planning grant is seeking evidence of academic collaboration, particularly in science and in health, between U.S. and Africans in four countries—Ghana and Senegal most importantly, but also Madagascar and Mozambique—to help the NSF understand, appreciate, and value the impact of having these high speed connections in place.

The team is requesting information about:

• Joint projects at your institution that involve collaboration with scientists, other researchers, medical personnel, and NGOs in any of these countries.
• Joint projects with known individuals from or in these countries that would take place, but cannot currently because of inadequate bandwidth/communication between your institution and the African country.
• Projects involving existing or former graduate students from any of these countries that are good candidates for joint work upon the graduate student's returns to his or her country.
• Potential projects, previously not conceptualized or implemented because of a lack of high-speed Internet connections to institutions and researchers in these countries.

Interested in China and understanding more about advanced networking directions, new networking technologies, applications and e-Science projects there? The CANS2004 (Chinese-American Networking Symposium) conference includes presentations by networking experts from both countries, presentations by researchers currently using advanced network technologies to collaborate between China and the US and panel discussions about future collaborative areas in next generation networking. This annual conference, alternately held in the US and China, will be hosted by Florida International University and takes place in Miami, FL from November 30 - December 2, 2004.

CANS2004 will feature presentations by networking experts, researchers and faculty currently using advanced network technologies to collaborate between China and the US, and panel discussions about future collaborative areas in next generation networking. Attendees include government officials from the science, technology, and education areas; network operators and managers from the research and education networking community; e-Science researchers from both communities; and representatives from networking and technology industries. Simultaneous Chinese/English translation will be provided.

Confirmed speakers include:
Dr. Yan Baoping, Director of the Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dr. Wu Jianping, Managing Director, China Education and Research Network
Dr. Shuigen Xiao, Director, Chinese Association of Science and Technology
Dr. Douglas E. Van Houweling, President and CEO, Internet2

The Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST-USA), Internet2, the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), and China Science and Technology Network (CSTNET) are co-organizers of the event. The 2004 conference marks the fifth annual gathering of CANS and builds on successful past conferences organized and hosted by the University of Maryland in 1999 and 2001 and CERNET and CSTNET in Shanghai in 2002.

The deadline for early registration is October 30 and the hotel block cut-off date is November 9 so make your plans now!

Register today at: http://www.canscouncil.org/cans/2004/index.html

The WorldBank's Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), Consorcio Latinoamericano de Redes Avanzadas (CLARA), and Internet2 will present "Collaboration and Opportunities" on 22 October 2004. This virtual conference will use videoconferencing to host the first in a series of dialogues on the role of national research and education networks in Latin America. Managers from GDLN Distance Learning Centers across South America will participate along with deans and other high-level administrators from the universities in those countries, which include Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Attendees will also include representatives from government telecom organizations, the telecom industry, and managers of national research and education networks. Juan Carlos Franco, WorldBank Information Technologies Coordinator for GDLN Latin America and the Caribbean Region explains, "We hope this conference will be the start of building a community among national research and education networks in Latin America, WorldBank's GDLN, Internet2, and CLARA so that mutual experiences can be shared and built upon." Conference organizers are hopeful that attendees will come away with a greater awareness of the implications and opportunities that can be achieved by joining CLARA, Internet 2 or any other advanced network organization for knowledge-sharing and capacity building throughout the region and a global scale. Ana Preston, Internet2 Program Manager for International Relations, Florencio Utreras, Vice President of CLARA and Executive Director of REUNA, and Carmen Carpio, GDLN LAC representative will be among the presenters.

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Image courtesy of the European VLBI Network.

Astronomers Demonstrate a Global Internet Telescope

On 22 September 2004, European and US collaborators demonstrated the use of advanced networks to link the radio telescopes electronically in real-time to perform radio astronomy experiments. The 20-hour long observations used the European VLBI Network (EVN) and involved radio telescopes in the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, and Puerto Rico. The combined resolution of the antennas was at least 20 milliarcseconds, which is about 5 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope. Including the antenna at Arecibo, in Puerto Rico, also increased the sensitivity of the telescope array by a factor of 10. Each European telescope was connected to its country's advanced research network, and the data routed at 32 Mbps per telescope across GEANT, the pan-European research network and the Dutch network, SURFnet. Arecibo data were sent to Europe via AMPATH and Internet2's Abilene Network. The data were then delivered to the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE), the central processing facility for the EVN in the Netherlands. There, the 9 Terabits of data were fed in real-time into a correlator and combined to deliver the final data directly to the astronomers. Before the advent of advanced research and education networks, astronomers could not transfer the huge amounts of data required for real-time VLBI observations across the Internet, and instead used magnetic tapes which were shipped to central processing facilities.

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Everyone in the world is invited to participate in the Megaconference, 9 December 2004, from the comfort of his or her own office, classroom, or conference room. Registration is now open via the website. Like any professional conference, presenters and audience members will discuss current trends and work. Unlike other conferences, hundreds of participants will gather simultaneously from all continents of the world using advanced networks, from universities, K-12 schools, and organizations. This year's theme -- Let's Talk: Global Communications, Innovation, and Participatory Videoconferencing -- encourages active participation among presenters and registered participants. The agenda will be posted by the end of the month, when the call for presenters closes. If you'd like to present an interactive session lasting 15 minutes, please submit your proposal through the website.

October 11, 2004

Leading researchers in the global radio astronomy community will convene in Makuhari, Japan on 6-7 October for the 3rd International e-VLBI workshop. Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is one of the most powerful techniques available for the high-resolution imaging of distant radio sources in the universe and for making accurate measurements of the motion of the earth in space. The electronic transmission of VLBI data is known as "e-VLBI." Topics to be discussed at this workshop will include reports on recent e-VLBI tests, plans for ongoing e-VLBI development, the status of interaction with network providers and developers, an update on international networking facilities, standards and protocols for e-VLBI data transfer, and hardware and software interfaces to telescope back-ends and correlators. Charles Yun, Internet2 Program Manager for Science and Engineering, will be among the presenters. Workshop organizers are planning a live demonstration of an international e-VLBI experiment.

The Makuhari workshop, which will be hosted by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) follows two previous e-VLBI workshops. The first workshop, held at MIT Haystack Observatory in April 2002, promoted the practice of global real-time and near-real-time VLBI observations using advanced network infrastructure. Following the success of the initial workshop, the second e-VLBI workshop was held at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) in May 2003. At this event, members of the e-VLBI community demonstrated enormous progress in advancements with both the network infrastructure and the e-VLBI observations and processing systems.

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In countries like Australia, where the population is small and unevenly distributed, access to specialized surgical expertise for training can be difficult. Surgical residents commonly travel long distances to attend training, at significant expense and disruption to their professional and personal lives. At the SimTecT 2004 conference, held recently in Canberra, Australia, collaborators at Stanford University and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization) demonstrated how advanced networking can enable a surgical instructor to provide live instruction remotely. Both student, instructor, and observers could watch the interactions between the instructor and student—and also see the virtual tools, objects and interaction interfaces used as part of the teaching—in the style of an audience watching a performing arts master-class. A collection of video clips from the SimTecT demo is available for online viewing.

Stanford and CSIRO are preparing a similar Virtual Surgery Master Class demonstration for the Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting, taking place in Austin, TX on 27-30 September. In that demo, the surgical instructor will lead the student, who is immersed in a 3D view of the abdominal organs, through the live simulated surgical procedure. The system will continuously transmit incremental changes in the 3D model (anatomy, instruments, pointers, and annotation) between Canberra and Austin keeping all components, including the haptically-enabled instruments, synchronized with each other. Both participants can simultaneously "grasp" pliable body organs, cut tissue, and at the same time feel the actions and forces provided by each other across the Pacific. Each site can independently zoom or pan the viewpoint, and also lock the views together to jointly study the scene. Instruction will be supplemented by real-time 3D annotation in the virtual scene and a virtual white board is available for drawing diagrams. A virtual video player, allows the participants to remain immersed in the virtual environment while they view a pre-recorded video of real surgery. Each participant can pause the video and draw on the virtual screen while discussing the operation. The virtual video players at each end of the network connection are synchronized so that each participant sees the same video frames.

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August 02, 2004

Attendees at the recent APAN meeting saw the first-ever successful transmission of uncompressed HD video using Windows platforms at a data rate of 1.5 Gbps demonstrated by ResearchChannel. The session "Extreme Internet Video," showed several levels of Internet HDTV (High Definition Television) including consumer-broadband quality compressed from 5 to 8 Mbps, broadcast quality compressed to just under 20 Mbps, and uncompressed of the highest quality at 1.5 Gbps. ResearchChannel, along with its member institutions and partners, have developed IP-based audio/video streaming technologies spanning the entire spectrum of HDTV quality levels. The APAN demonstration delivered Video On Demand (VOD) using software developed at the University of Washington in conjunction with commercially available video capture boards and PCI-X computers donated by Intel Corporation. ResearchChannel will repeat the experiment soon over a longer distance network utilizing recently available 10 Gbps network cards and will be demonstrating at SC2004 in November. ResearchChannel is also adding HD programming to the DigitalWell Project that already hosts over 2000 hours of broadcast-quality VOD available to the public.

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APAN, an Internet2 international partner, is a non-profit international consortium, currently comprising 14 Primary, 10 Affilliate, 5 Liaison, 2 Associate and 2 Industry Members from the Research and Education Networking Organisations of the Pacific Rim countries and economies and their partners. APAN is also a high-performance network for research and development on advanced next generation applications and services. Many APAN countries peer with the US Internet2 network, Abilene and also via the international high performance connections of the TransPAC project. APAN provides an advanced networking environment for the research and education community in the Asia-Pacific Rim region and promotes global collaboration. On 2-7 July 2004, the 18th APAN Meeting took place in Australia. During this meeting, representatives and speakers from the Asia/Pacific region, North America, South America and Europe joined to share information on advanced networking efforts, international connections, and applications.

July 19, 2004

The Center for Excellence in Remote and Medically Underserved Areas (CERMUSA) at Saint Francis University (SFU) has been working with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and the MAGPI gigaPoP to develop advanced methods of medical education using Internet2. These collaborators are making costly medical simulation models housed at USUHS, located in Bethesda, MD, available over Internet2 advanced networks to students in the Physician Assistant program at SFU, located in rural Loretto, PA. Advanced connectivity in rural and hard to reach locations such as Loretto can be a challenge for institutions that are looking to take advantage of Internet2. In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania and the MAGPI gigaPoP, a sustainable cost-effective solution was found enabling CERMUSA to obtain a 45 Mbps connection to the Abilene Network through MAGPI. Colleagues at the National Library of Medicine, along with the technical staff at CERMUSA, were helpful in finding innovative solutions for many of the security issues the group confronted during transmission.

The most recent simulation—performed by these collaborators—involved SFU students in a classroom with four plasma monitors, each displaying high quality video of the emergency room simulator located at USUHS. Two monitors showed an overall view of the emergency room and two displayed the vital signs monitor for the simulated patient, transmitted using Digital Video Transport System (DVTS). Students watched the live video feeds, made assessments about the "patient," and communicated those assessments in real-time to the doctor at USUHS, who then performed the procedures on the patient simulator. According to Robert E. Griffin Assistant Director of Distance Learning at CERMUSA, "Simulation is a tool that must be used in medical education. Internet2 advanced networks can potentially extend access to simulators, instructors, and other learning resources, to students anywhere—changing the traditional model of the medical education classroom."

This project is partially funded by the Office of Naval Research.

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June 07, 2004

On 25 March 2004, scientists at MIT's Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts and the Onsala Space Observatory antenna in Sweden ran the first successful real-time international transmission and processing of VLBI data (dubbed "e-VLBI"). Using Internet2's BWCTL tool and intermediate beacons in Washington and London, researchers at Haystack ran tests to diagnose transcontinental network problems before the experiment. The data collected allowed them to quickly pinpoint a packet loss problem to local congestion in the Haystack vicinity; as a result, the bottleneck link was updated in time for the 25 March experiment. A related case study is available [HTML] [PDF].

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The Global Learning project at Wichita State University (WSU) combines Global Reach, using advanced technologies such as Internet2, with Global Perspectives. The goal of this program is to facilitate interaction between learners and faculty living in different cultures, and produce the "Global Graduate." In addition to expertise in their subject areas, Global Graduates exhibit superior teamwork, communication, and IT skills. Most importantly, they understand, honor and respect people of other cultures. WSU is now part of a network of almost 40 collaborating universities in 21 different countries. We are learning more about the importance of QoS and aspects of IPv6 protocol applications as we move to more intensive combinations of simultaneous, live audio, video and data interchange. The global learning program is led by the Boeing Distinguished Professor of Global Learning, Dr Glyn Rimmington.

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May 17, 2004

AARNet (Australia's Academic and Research Network), an Internet2 international partner since 1999, announced the SX TransPORT (Southern Cross Trans-Pacific Optical Research Testbed) project to provide dual 10 Gigabit per second capacity circuits that will expand current connections between AARNet, via Hawaii, and the advanced research and education networks in North America, including the Abilene network. The SX TransPORT results from a partnership between Southern Cross and AARNet to catalyse new, effective ways for Australia's research community to participate in and contribute to global e-science programs. The Australian Government will contribute AU$16.4 million towards the total project cost of $44.8 million.

January 19, 2004

International partnerships link Internet2 members to research and education networking organizations around the world.

As research, teaching and learning activities of many Internet2 members are increasingly global in nature, international connections become increasingly important. Via high-performance network connections between Internet2's international partners and the Abilene network, Internet2 members have access to more than forty research and education networks around the world, encompassing thousands of leading institutions in dozens of other countries.

December 15, 2003

The first links in the Global Terabit Research Network are now operational (announcement). The purpose of the GTRN is to do for the worldwide research and education community what high-performance backbone networks like GÉANT, CA*net3, and Abilene are doing for their regional and national user communities. The initial GTRN partners are Europe's NREN Consortium and DANTE, Canada's CANARIE, and Internet2; the participation of the Asia-Pacific region has just been announced, and additional partners from Latin America, Russia, the Middle East and Africa are expected soon. Indiana University CIO Michael McRobbie presented GTRN at the recent Internet2 Member Meeting; his slides (large PPT) are an excellent source of further information.

May 20, 2002

Internet2 International Partner DFN-Verein, has launched a new gigabit-class network called G-WiN. The new network will connect universities and other research and education sites throughout Germany using WDM/SDH (Sonet) transport technologies supplied by Deutsche Telekom.  DFN connects to the United States´ Internet2 community via the Abilene point of presence in New York City.

July 17, 2000

The AmericasPATH (AMPATH) network is an FIU project in collaboration with Global Crossing.  Using Global Crossing's terrestrial and submarine optical-fiber network, AMPATH will interconnect Internet2 members and other worldwide R&E networks with Internet2 MoU partners in South and Central America, the Carribean and Mexico - such as REUNA, RNP2 and CUDI - via the Abilene network.

September 04, 2000

President Ricardo Lagos of Chile spoke at the ceremony inaugurating the high-performance research and education network link established by REUNA and Internet2 between their countries.   The connection will enable collaboration among researchers and educators in the two countries.

September 18, 2000

DANTE  and Internet2 connected high-performance research and education backbone networks across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time on October 8, 1999. The interconnection between Abilene and TEN-155 was a success from the start, so much so that the significant rate of growth of traffic in the past few months led to a need for a major increase in capacity. This was achieved by the provision of a new STM-4 local loop in New York from DeTe Systems on December 18, 2000. This upgrade to 622 Mbps also allows the TEN-155 users to benefit from Abilene's International Transit Network (ITN) service, giving them access to research networks throughout Asia and the Americas.

January 15, 2001

AARNet, the Australian Academic and Research Network, now enjoys an OC-3 (155 Mbps) connection to the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP in Seattle. The connection traverses the Southern Cross trans-Pacific cable; it will be available to Internet2 and CANARIE networks, and, through AARNet's participation in the International Transit Network, to many other research and education networks worldwide. AARNet's AARNet2 backbone serves Australian universities, CSIRO Australia, and their partners in research and education.

August 06, 2001

The Advanced Research and Education Network Atlas is under construction at arena.internet2.edu. ARENA currently provides maps, contact information, and web site links for R&E networks around the world; the ARENA project is developing tools that will be able to find and describe the paths available between any two points on the planet. ARENA needs your data! Please click here to contribute.

August 20, 2001

GÉANT, the pan-European gigabit research network, is a four-year project set up by a consortium of 27 European national research and education networks (NRENs), with DANTE as its coordinating partner. GÉANT is co-funded by the European Commission and replaces TEN-155, which was shut down in December 2001. GÉANT provides a gigabit backbone and advanced network services for the European research community, reaching more than 3,000 research and education institutions in more than 30 countries. GÉANT connects to North America via two 2.5 Gbps circuits; through one of these, GÉANT peers directly with Abilene. GÉANT also participates in Abilene’s International Transit Network service, allowing it to peer with many other research and education networks around the world. DANTE and many of the European NRENs that participate in GÉANT are Internet2 MoU partners.

March 04, 2002

StarLight, a Gigabit Ethernet-based network access point, now connects the Dutch SURFnet to the US Abilene network; providing Abilene with gigabit-speed connectivity to the Netherlands. For more information, see this November 15 press release.

November 26, 2001