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DoIT boosts Internet for research
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by Nick Penzenstadler
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A new fiber optic network will allow University of Wisconsin researchers to access information up to 20,000 times faster and one million times greater than the capacity of a typical home broadband connection, the Division of Information Technology announced Monday.
DoIT spokesperson Meg McCall said the network, called the Broadband Optical Research, Education and Sciences Network, connects to a loop of fiber optic cable between UW, Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota.
"It is a network that is much, much larger than anything we've had before," McCall said. "It's because of the data that is generated for their research — certain kinds generate volumes and volumes of data and complex calculations the average Internet service can't handle."
McCall said the network cost UW a one-time $100,000, which added to collaborative payments of participating schools in the area.
Ken Frazier, DoIT's interim chief information officer, said the school will benefit from the one-time payment system because it will eventually need more speed. And although the research component was the drive behind BOREAS-Net, Frazier said all students will eventually benefit from the technology.
"The real payoff is that everyone expects the consumption of bandwidth to grow rapidly in the future for instruction, video and simulations," Frazier said. "We are seeing students that are very much into games and simulations, and undergraduate students asking for opportunities to be involved in research and collaboration earlier on."
McCall pointed to UW's extensive Ice Cube research project located at the South Pole as a perfect example that rapid information transfer is vital to discovery and scientific progress.
"You have to wait hours or days for it to be delivered via the traditional network or with hard media," McCall said.
Bryan Hendricks, a UW psychology professor and researcher, said when research data takes up large volumes of space, it is beneficial to transfer it quickly.
"I'm sure there are areas where that would be really important for massive data transfer, doing MRI scans and things along those lines," Hendricks said. "Anywhere when you have very dense, complex data it could make a big difference."
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