April 2004


Another Internet speed record... who cares?

Another Internet speed record was recognized at the latest Internet2 conference in the US last week. But who cares?

A great many people, it turns out, care a great deal about this. For them, this is a deadly serious competition that pushes the envelope of research for the greater benefit of global advancements in science, medicine, industry and many other fields.

The latest advancement involved setting a new Internet2(R) Land Speed Record by transferring data across nearly 11,000 kilometers at an average rate of 6.25 gigabits per second (Gbps), nearly 10,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection, from Los Angeles, California to Geneva, Switzerland.

The new mark was announced April 20 in conjunction with the Spring 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting in Arlington, Virginia.

The mark of 68,431 terabit-meters per second, which used the same protocols deployed throughout the global Internet, was set by a team consisting of members from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and CERN. The same team previously set a new mark of four Gbps over the same distance using IPv6, the next generation of Internet protocols.

The values and speeds achieved are so large and fast that for many people, these achievements are difficult to fully understand, or appreciate.

One can more easily understand the value of research into faster, more economic passenger jets, for instance. The immediate benefits of data transmission tests at 10,000 times the speed of typical home broadband connections, however, may not be so apparent.

Yet, without this type of research, our top research facilities, colleges, universities, libraries and many school boards would still be functioning in the dark ages, from a connectivity perspective.

Recent studies of network requirements by the U.S. Department of Energy have shown that high energy physics, astrophysics, fusion energy, climatology, bioinformatics and other fields will require networks in the terabit per second range within the next decade.

"This new multi-stream record is an important step towards next generation Grids where scientists are able to share an ensemble of links based on 10 gigabit per second optical wavelengths efficiently," said Harvey Newman, Professor of Physics at Caltech, US CMS Collaboration Board Chair, and Chair of the Standing Committee on Inter-regional Connectivity of the International Committee on Future Accelerators.

“In order to realize this vision, we are now working on moving these developments into a production setting, and moving on together with our partners to higher speeds and hybrid networks involving both traditional links and dynamically switched optical paths,” he said

Phil Baker, President and CEO of the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION), fresh from the Internet2 Conference, believes that keeping on top of the research underlying such tests is critical to our country’s ability to remain innovative, and competitive.

“It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. That’s why the challenges involved in setting land-speed records, for instance, are so important. They raise the bar. In the end, we all benefit from the technology solutions and lessons learned,” he said.

“The Internet2 Conference provides a great opportunity to meet with colleagues from across the US and around the world, and focus on the transformational changes brought about by the next generation Internet. We at ORION are proud to be part of that and making our own contribution,” he said.

You can read more about the recent Internet2 Spring 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting and learn more detail on the Land Speed Record at http://www.internet2.edu.


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