Internet2 Turns 15. Has It Delivered? 120
stinkymountain writes "With nearly $100 million in new funding, Internet2, the faster, better Internet reserved for research and education, has embarked on an upgrade that will boost backbone capacity to a staggering 8.8Tbps and expand services to hundreds of thousands of libraries, schools and medical centers. Internet2 was created by 34 university research institutions in 1996, when the commercial and non-commercial branches of the Internet's evolutionary tree split off and went their separate ways. The mission of Internet2 was to provide reliable, dedicated bandwidth to support the ever-growing demands of the research and educational communities, and in doing so, to develop technologies that would advance the state of the 'commodity' Internet. Some say it has failed in that latter category."
Yes! It has delivered! (Score:4, Funny)
A job well done, sir!
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Isn't that the source of most pr0n anyway?
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This doesn't make sense, unless you are getting your pr0n directly from your friends at other schools.
Perhaps you missed the message of The Social Network.
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Amateur co-ed is the best kind anyway. So yes, that is where it comes from.
Re:Yes! It has delivered! (Score:4, Funny)
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So, it's as fast to finish as you are?
IPv6 (Score:1, Interesting)
Does Internet 2 come with IPv6, or is that extra?
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IPv6 is supported on the I2 networks. Not all the GigaPoPs necessarily support it but most do.
Failed? (Score:2)
Some say that it succeeded in the category of mass-enabling of piracy at fantastical new speeds.
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C*Net (Score:1)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] to develop technologies that would advance the state of the 'commodity' Internet. Some say it has failed in that latter category.
I'd say that's a problem caused by the ISPs not by this initiative.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
That is a curious conjecture. I would think that Internet2's primary distinction from the commercial Internet is the speed of individual links. For most of Internet2's life -- in particular, the last three quarters of it -- commercial gear vendors have greatly increased link speeds, routing table capacity, capacity to handle routing changes and other "carrier grade" features. Vendors for edge routers have focused on distinguishing features like deep packet inspection. Do you allege that ISPs are at fault because they selected equipment, technology and approaches that were inferior to what Internet2 developed? If so, why?
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What are you going on about? Internet2 is all about backbone(-like) technologies. Almost by definition it does not care about the very edge of the network (consumers) except to the extent that some of the edge nodes -- users of scientific computing -- have some really large data sets to move across the backbone. Internet2 is not trying to solve whatever problems you think distinguish those two network links (or solve "last mile" issues in general). If that focus on the backbone makes it fail to advance
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To be honest, I do not really understand what the hell Internet 2 actually means, but I know I've got it at work here in Cleveland. All the components are certainly off the shelf switches and routers, at least in the lab I work at, so I'm not sure it's all that different than commercial equipment except for one simple fact - my "trace rout" is very few hops from origin to destination. I'm told, and believe this to be the case, that the whole point of Internet 2 is reduced latency and increased throughput.
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What are you going on about?
The prior post asked a question, and i answerd it. I should have quoted...
Do you allege that ISPs are at fault because they selected equipment, technology and approaches that were inferior to what Internet2 developed? If so, why?
And my answer...
Consumers... They just see the "up to 500gigabites!" and forget the backbone.
Since there is no consumer push for sustained throughput at high speeds, they don't build it. The last mile is solved. It is the 10 miles between that and the backbone that is choked now.
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The whole point of Internet 2 was to not waste bandwidth on crap like Slashdot or Facebook and reserve it for academic needs. It was never intended to replace or improve what the internet is now, but rather to recreate what the internet was originally envisioned as. I would say that it has failed in that regard to some extent though, because the unavoidable fact of the matter is if you give college students an assload of bandwidth, they're going to waste it on stupid crap.
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My thoughts, too. I'm still working with less than a 1 MB connection - and I know lots of people who are still on dial-up because the telcos can't be bothered to go that "last mile". The walled garden does me no good, or millions of other Americans who live far from the cities and colleges.
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define "profit"? 5%, 10%, more? lets try this one more time so it does not seem so soft on the providers....
...still on dial-up because the telcos need to maximize profit and can't on that "last mile". There, FTFY.
Profit is good, greed is not.
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Exactly.
AT&T's wireless ads are a prime example. "We cover 97% of Americans" However that means AT&T thinks that 10 million people aren't worth having as customers.
Sadly Verizon isn't any better on the national scale. So many places where both of them drop to speeds barely able for phone calls only miles from the interstates.
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10 million people aren't worth having as customers.
No, it means that the companies in question would lose money instead of making it by deploying those services to the low-population-density areas where those 10 million people live. Telcos do a ridiculous amount of data modeling, backed by years of results, to determine where they can make money by deploying infrastructure and where they can't. Some businesses require a certain customer density to recoup investment costs and this is one of them. It's not anything personal against the people who live in thos
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It's a nice story, but they only partially do accurate modelling. They have a long history of lettting graft, corruption, and redlining "influence" their models, just a tad.
meh (Score:2)
They ISPs like would have simply turned this funding into profits while continuing to throttle individual connection speeds.
I mean seriously, what would out bandwidth look like without the throttling they put on the cable & DSL Modems?
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They ISPs like would have simply turned this funding into profits while continuing to throttle individual connection speeds.
Ever hear of attaching 'strings' to funding?
"Technologically feasible efforts must be undertaken to ensure the highest individual connection speed possible."
Conditions are in place 15 years from the date of funding; in case of breach, all funding is to be returned with a 200% penalty.
At the end of 15 years, provider has the option of repaying the funding, and ending the agreeme
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lol! Nice dream world.
Who else thought they were talking about Web 2.0 (Score:3, Informative)
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Honest enough mistake, considering that nobody outside of a very select group has ever gotten to use it and likely never will.
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Actually anyone who has ever attended, lived at, worked for, or visited a university that is a part of the Internet2 consortium has used it. I wouldn't call that a very select group, because we're talking millions of people per year...
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Apparently this guy [slashdot.org] who posted 14 minutes after you. With the exception noted that he did not go back and read TFA, and, apparently, the comments as well.
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Yeah, thanks to wikis and open source (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Given the success of Wikipedia, it seems to me that Joe Public has no trouble at all using Wikis, WYSIWYG or no.
Absolutely (Score:5, Interesting)
(Disclaimer: I work at a European university and have collaborations with a university in the US)
Internet2 is absolutely a godsend. In my work, it allows the sharing of large, expensive cluster computers (which can generate huge datasets). Wouldn't be possible without Internet2.
As for advancing the state of the 'commodity' Internet, meh. The infrastructure pays for itself in shared resources alone.
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Over here:
http://www.rrze.uni-erlangen.de/ [uni-erlangen.de]
These guys are really top-class.
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Ah, yes, they've got a fast normal internet connection too, I always get my Eclipse versions there. Give my regards to Ronand Veldema :)
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Ronald of course, typo.
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Well since the majority of people on Slashdot do not seem to know what it is I would say that it is a smashing success.
I am sure that it is great to have a fast high speed network that connects research centers that is not filled with LOLCats, pron, and Youtube videos is worth it's weight in gold.
Yep (Score:5, Informative)
The I2 network has become one that is practical and useful, rather than pie-in-the-sky. Well part of that means building it on technology that you can actually deliver for a reasonable price. That does mean that it is not a latest, greatest, fastest at all costs network. IT is not composed of the biggest, baddest OC lines you can get with CRS-3 routers behind it.
However what it does do is give good bandwidth to universities that is dedicated. I2 doesn't do transit for regular Internet traffic, it is only for communicating with peer institutions. It is a big WAN, if you want to look at it like that. That means the bandwidth is much less used and more available. Thus you get nice, fast, transfers basically all of the time.
This also has the advantage of saving the university money on their normal Internet connection. More or less you just set up your routers so that I2 is preferred, and then all traffic that can use it does. Well that is traffic that doesn't have to use your most costly I1 link and thus money is saved.
Now something else to consider about the technology is that I2 has moved over to almost all Ethernet these days. The core is all 10GigE and many connections are gig or 10 gig. This is not as high bandwidth as some other technologies but has a big advantage in the latency department.
See when you are talking all Ethernet you can do layer-3 switching. That lets you hybridize a router and a switch. More or less you get the capabilities of a router, but with the low latencies of a switch. You find that is real, real common on large networks, like campuses. The campus I work on is 100% Ethernet internally, all but the edges layer-3.
Ok well if I2 is Ethernet, then you can have layer-3 switching going on there too. This can reduce your latency. You still have some if for no other reason than the speed of light, data doesn't move instantly over long distances, but you can lower it over other kinds of routing.
Combine that with generally less hops on I2 and you latencies can be much better than I1, which is really nice for a lot of things like various kinds of cloud computing.
I2 may not be the most amazing thing out there, suing the latest tech, but it does its job damn well. It lets universities exchange data quickly, and do so at less cost.
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AFS on Athena is quite nice too.
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Depends on how you define 'Delivered' (Score:5, Interesting)
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"The bottom line," Nolle says, "is Internet2 a science project? If it doesn't have any relevance to the issues of the [commercial] Internet as it is now, then what good is it really going to do? My view is that the success or failure of any publicly-funded project is whether it benefits the public, and I suspect that most everyone in the general population would say that if Internet2 isn't going to fix problems with the [commercial] Internet, it's not helping them."
I think that most everyon
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I think that most everyone in the general population would think that Nolle is right, and that his attitude typifies the point of view that's pulling America down into technological irrelevance.
FTFY. The US has been poisoned from the top down to only care about the next quarter. No wonder the long term sustainability of the business isn't there.
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Until the masses over-run it again. (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that what internet(1) was all about?
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How do you know my ass is worthless? You know nothing about me, nor do you even know how I feel about paying taxes towards Internet II.
All I do is point out that I pay taxes, and the long-haird, dope-smoking, maggot-infested liberals come out and chastise me for my narrow, intolerant, unenlightened attittude.
See? It sounds just as stupid coming from me as it does from you. Go get an account.
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You don't get to personally USE everything you pay taxes for. Some things are actually for the greater good.
Try to think outside your little box of "ME ME ME!" and stop being selfish. This "me first, everyone else can get fucked" thinking is why this country is having so many problems today.
Re:How woud I know? (Score:5, Insightful)
You pay taxes for fighter jets as well, but no one is going to let you fly them.
Also particle accelerators, rockets, deep sea submersibles, aircraft carriers, police cars, and all kinds of other things. What's the point?
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Cheated? How so?
We allowed you on the Internet, and moved our stuff to Internet2. You can Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and browse the webs. You can clog the tubes with bittorrent and netflix to your heart's (*cough* ISP's) content.
In return for allowing the public on the Internet, the government funded the Internet2 so we can have enough bandwidth to still perform work with room to grow.
If it wasn't for Internet2, we would have been forced to pulled our collective weight and kept the internet in the 1990'
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"In return for allowing the public on the Internet"
Um, having paid for most of it, especially the DARPA work that made it all practical, I don;t feel the least bit of shame for taking advantage of some something I pay for still.
Yes, I pay for my Internet access, I pay for my servers and their access, I pay even for people who can't so they can go to the library and get access. I don't begrudge a dime of it. The Internet has changed everything, pretty much. Good deal.
But I don't know that I benefit much f
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You indirectly benefit from Internet2 by having unrestricted growth on the original Internet.
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Unrestricted growth? We pay for that. Internet II doesn't impact spending on infrastructure. It might impact design, but iron costs.
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You seem to be fixated on cost. Internet2 gives the original Internet the ability to have unrestricted growth.
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And without revenue, that ability would be moot. Actually, without revenue, there is also no ability.
I'm not fixated on cost, but I realize that the commercialization of the Internet is what has fueled its growth. Literally fueled it with money.
And I do recognize that I pay essentially $70/mo for Internet access, both static and mobile. It ain't cheap.
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The consumer use of the Internet is fueled by the growth you are describing. The research part has benefitted some from the larger number of educational institutions that are able to now afford access. However, these smaller institutions normally don't participate in research that requires the bandwidth that Internet2 offers. The institutions that use Internet2 aren
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Look, before you go any further, I don't think that any money I spend on Internet access goes to supporting Internet 2 or Internet II or whatever you call it. In fact, I'm pretty sure taxpayer subsidies are no longer, if they ever were, covering most of the cost of the system. Universities etc. have more than enough incentive to fund the development and operation of a highest-speed Internet. It was both DARPA's desire for a resiliant communications system and unviersities seeking to build a network to le
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Hey! If hooking me up to Internet II had the same consequences as the last time I was hooked up to a university-centric system, there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and ultimately the entire state of Arizona would be disconnected from the Internet until I was expunged and prevented from further annoying the professors and grad students/TAs.
That was fun. I'd do it again if it wasn't so disturbing to so many otherwise decent people, but the few cannot tolerate such behavior, and care not that their
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You're not.
You don't have to pay for any of those things. Find you a place up in Idaho where no one's been in fifty years, bring a copy of the $50 Underground House Book, and squat. If no one knows where you are, then they can't make you pay for stuff. Or you could be homeless - panhandlers don't (generally) pay taxes, and live in shelters or on the streets. Maybe even join a gang, squat in an abandoned building, and mug people for a living - you'd be paying sales tax, but at least sales tax generally d
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At least I got GPS, Velcro, and some prescription meds out of those.
And I'm not complaining about paying for Internet II, just pointing out that it doesn't seem to impact me directly, and you STILL don't offer me any example of the beneifts. You could, but you don't. You just perpetuate the response that I must be a Luddite, right-winger, or daft to not embrace Internet II as a remarkable achievement and worthy of my admiration and support.
And you still don't seem to know if I do support it or not. Like
OK, let me try briefly (Score:1)
I'm not a PR person, so don't expect this to be a wonderful color brochure.
In spite of the kind of coverage Internet2 gets on /., it is not primarily some network run by and for networking or internet dweebs. It is just a production network supporting the massive communication needs of universities, enabling computational sciences. Computer Science is a bunch of math or tech dweebs pontificating about computers, and sometimes running experiments. Computational sciences are all the other dweebs using compute
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stupid tea bagging idiot!!
Is it just me or is this a pretty typical left-wing kneejerk troll reaction whenever someone complains about taxes in any way, shape, or form, even if they just disagree with some particular use case? Had this complaint been voiced under the rule of Herr Bush, I doubt we would see this reaction.
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Hey, Asshat, I do pay my taxes. my making a point of that is the reason some others of your ilk are trying to offend me. And hey, are you as interested in funding spaceflight and military research as much as I am funding Internet development? Bet you are NOT.
Sheesh, read huh? Oh, and you ought to get an account too.
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1) If you knew how I felt about the Tea Party movement, you wouldn't waste the bits unless you just want a platform to vent your hyperbole.
2) Using the term 'tea bagging' is an intentional slur. You are diminished by it, except for your own insular group of the fellow-minded, which leaves you more isolated. Really, grow up and consider engaging in useful discourse. The insults remind me that this isn't about what is best for our country, it's about winning the battle and crushing the opposition. Short-s
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Using the term 'tea bagging' is an intentional slur
It probably was in this case, but it's worth noting that "Tea Party" members originally called themselves "tea baggers" until they learned that the term had less savory connotations.
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Actually, I didn't hear much of Tea Party organizers using the term 'tea bagger' in referfence to their membership. The initial references to tea bags was the move for April 15, 2009, to send tea bags to the White House in protest of taxes and spending/ As soon as the derogatory references were undertstood, the media used the term to refer to the Tea Party movement, and of course their detractors preferred to use the term in all manner of reference. Tea Party members both stopped using the 'tea bag' meta
I will wait.. (Score:2)
Yes, no and I don't know. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say that having an IP infrastructure solely for academic, research and non-commercial needs alone is an accomplishment and is a success.
I'd say that the lack of visible results by the common lay person, even technophiles, means that visibily the project has failed on some level. The fact that we haven't found a transition plan to IPv6 from the growing pains of I2 also means on some level, we're looking at some sort of failure(my personal hope of what we'd get from Internet2).
However, given that it's restricted access, the whole thing is largely up in the air and tech columnists and even technogeeks(Unless you're one of those academics who's pushing billions of records across the network to be processed through a giant cluster on the other side of the world) really can't comment on what I2 has achieved. Plus, what constitutes "success" is largely in the eye of the beholder. I doubt there will ever be a quantitative metric we could actually use to measure whether or not I2 is a success or not.
Despite that though, it's continued existence and growth, slow or not, does tell us that it wasn't a mistake, and it's not a failure, but it doesn't tell us whether or not it was a success, and if it is, by what measure.
Has It Delivered? (Score:2)
Advancement of commercial internet. Not like that (Score:2)
What made the Internet more affordable today was (in order of importance):
1 - Drastic reduction in fiber equipment costs
2 - Availability of Gigabit and 10 Gig ethernet over long range fiber / DWDM
3 - L3 ethernet switches (switches that are routers)
4 - Improvements in Linux technology (specially ever faster CPUs and IO busses) to force Cisco(and the rest of the prime IP router suppliers) routers price down
5 - Availability of GEPON and other end user fiber solution
Ultra high speed internet isn't making its wa
Monopolies slow the Internet (Score:2)
I'd also point out that somewhere in the middle of your list, at least in the US, would be competition. When the 1996 telco reform act forced the monopoly phone companies to allow interconnects with startup local exchanges you saw a drastic drop in price. You also saw the forming of thousands of ISPs across the country reaching into areas that none of the big companies were serving. Also backbone service got cheaper with competition. I remember having MCI lines. When MCI merged with UUnet they had to sell o
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I said more affordable, not dirt cheap.
I forgot to mention that Brazilian ISPs/Telcos pay over 50% total taxes. Just gross tax on receipts run above 30%, after adding corporate profit taxes takes over 50% of total revenue.
So US$ 300/mo = US$ 150/mo net revenue for the ISP.
Yes competition is key. But if there was good demand for internet service right where you are, why isn't there a venture capitalist willing to fund a startup ISP to compete with the big guys ? Perhaps what you consider fair price for Inter
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It's about $45/month (300 SEK, including tax) for my 100/100 connection here in Stockholm, although the fibre still belongs to B2. But there are no caps, no throttling, no filtering, and no restrictions on running servers or torrents; I get to control which ports I want to have open/closed; and although we don't yet have IPv6 support, I get 4 public IP addresses. It'll do.
If you can read this... (Score:4, Funny)
...then Internet2 has delivered.
Bridge installed in 3...2...1 (Score:2)
Enjoy the spam, suckaz.
Hahaha... the real reason... (Score:1)
The real reason Internet2 was created was to let kids at different schools play Quake against each other with lower ping times... that's it.
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Metal screaming actually grates on me more than pop autotune.
[I dig some clean-singing classic metal though.]