NSF invited researchers with I-WAY applications to participate in an international broadband testbed as part of a new G7 effort to promote global interoperability for high-speed networks. The goal is to provide a medium for joint research and development. Initially that will mean establishing experimental intercontinental links between the U.S., Europe, and Japan.
Telecommunications companies have formed two consortiums that will donate test facilities for the project. Sprint -- in collaboration with TeleGlobe (Canada), Deutsche Telekom (Germany), and France Telecom -- will provide at least one 155 Mbps line for a transatlantic testbed configured in a rectangle between the four countries. AT&T along with NTT (Japan) will provide a transpacific line of similar speed. Infrastructure for both testbeds is expected to be in place later this year. Eventually the United Kingdom and Italy -- the remaining European G7 countries -- will become part of the network.
U.S. participation in this project is being coordinated by Steve Goldstein, NSF program director for Interagency and International Networking Coordination. Advising Goldstein on how best to connect and use these networks are four members of NCSA. Charlie Catlett, associate director for Computing and Communications, and Randy Butler, manager of Networking and Security, are helping identify the best technologies for interconnecting U.S. networks with those in Europe and Japan. This project will involve interoperation of at least seven different broadband networks and exploration of interconnection strategies as well as mechanisms for dealing with delays inherent in multicontinent networks.
Helping channel some of the enthusiasm of the I-WAY to the global testbed are Tom DeFanti, associate director of NCSA's Virtual Environments Group and director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at UIC, and Maxine Brown, associate director for Marketing Communications at NCSA and associate director of EVL. They are helping identify applications to run on these testbeds. Researchers who presented applications at SC'95 are being encouraged to expand the reach of their projects by collaborating with overseas colleagues. They are not the only researchers encouraged to participate in the project; anyone interested should send email to g7@ncsa.uiuc.edu.
The impetus behind what is now being called the Global Interoperability for Broadband Networks (GIBN) project was the Clinton Administration's push for a global information society. During the Naples Economic Summit in July 1994, President Clinton urged the G7 nations to develop an international information infrastructure. In response the G7 hosted the first Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in Brussels, Belgium, the following February. Eleven pilot project themes were identified there; among them was global interoperability of broadband networks. NCSA was one of 15 organizations invited by the U.S. Department of Commerce to exhibit information technologies at the conference [see access, Spring 1995]. NCSA's participation led to its involvement in the global testbeds.
The U.S. coordinator for the G7 Global Information Society initiative, which includes GIBN as one of its themes, is Thomas Kalil, National Economic Council, The White House.
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