Internet2´s breakthroughs for academic research

Internet2 products are now indispensable in the research environment. Over 200 US universities lead Internet2, a not-for-profit consortium with many projects in the works. For the networking community, the centerpiece is Abilene, a networking infrastructure available to consortium members. Already very fast and very high-performance, Abilene is being upgraded. Soon it should be able to move data at 10 Gbits per second - four times its previous capacity and about 10 thousand times faster than most computer networks used today. Even as the networking community explores Abilene´s perils and possibilities, some researchers have raised questions about the Internet2 organization itself. They say that although Internet2 generally does a great job of bringing together high-end networking enthusiasts, the organization can sometimes be lax in particular policy areas