NATION'S MOST EXTENSIVE GIGABIT RESEARCH NETWORK BRIDGES FOUR STATES, LINKS LABS AND UNIVERSITIES

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

The following news release was issued today, June 24, 1993


NATION'S MOST EXTENSIVE GIGABIT RESEARCH NETWORK BRIDGES
FOUR STATES, LINKS LABS AND UNIVERSITIES

Washington, D.C. -- Bellcore has announced the successful trial
of the nation's most far-reaching multi-gigabit research
network -- spanning four states and linking major laboratories
and universities -- a critical step in the research that will
underlie a National Information Infrastructure.

The experimental network, dubbed AURORA, has been demonstrated to
transport data at 2.4 gigabits (billion bits) per second, and
experiments have been conducted -- using optical fiber facilities
-- between three of the AURORA sites:

-University of Pennsylvania's Distributed System Laboratory,
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

-Bellcore's Morristown Research and Engineering Laboratory,
 Morristown, New Jersey

-MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, Cambridge,
 Massachusetts

The telecommunications companies involved in the trial include
Bell Atlantic, MCI and NYNEX.  The research organizations
involved include Bellcore, MIT and the University of
Pennsylvania.

Aurora is one of five testbeds, established by the Corporation
for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), with support from the
National Science Foundation (NSF), Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) and the commercial participants in the project. 
These testbeds are being deployed across the United States to
help researchers determine the feasibility of gigabit per second
networking that would be required for the development of a
National Research and Engineering Network (NREN), and
subsequently a National Information Infrastructure.

"Starting in early May, we have been activating different
portions of the network -- transmitting data back and forth at
multi-gigabit speeds each time," notes Dave Sincoskie, Executive
Director of Computer Networking Research at Bellcore.  "We have
also been incorporating experimental terminal equipment and
telecommunications switches on an ongoing basis.  Incorporating
these prototypes enables us to carry the experiments forward
without waiting for devices that are capable of long-term use. 
We have transmitted data and video signals between computers
located at Bellcore, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT."

"AURORA, now functional, will provide an experimental platform in
which researchers can explore business and scientific
applications of gigabit networks," continues Sincoskie, "while
evolving the network architectures necessary to meet the needs of
these emerging technologies."
     
With AURORA, Bellcore will experiment with two emerging
technologies which have been standardized by the
telecommunications industry (SONET and ATM) and applications
which use these technologies.  According to Sincoskie, the
telecommunications carriers involved in AURORA have constructed
the world's most extensive multi-gigabit Synchronous Optical
Network (SONET) system, transmitting data at 2.4 gigabits per
second over 350 miles between Philadelphia, Morristown, New
Jersey and Boston.  Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), an emerging
telecommunications switching standard, is being used to switch
the data between the three sites of AURORA.  ATM is based on the
transfer of small, fixed-size packets of data called cells.

AURORA will also be used to extensively test the exchange of
visual images -- an increasingly significant aspect of
telecommunications network traffic.  Those applications tested
will include teleconferencing and the presentation of multi-media
information -- each targeting at understanding their use in both
businesses and residences in the future.
     
"One of the real contributions of AURORA has been the focus on
delivering high bandwidths to computer applications operating on
workstations, since this class of machine is widely available,"
notes Professor Jonathan Smith, University of Pennsylvania co-
principal investigator with Professor David Farber of its
Distributed Systems Laboratory.

"One of the most remarkable things about this effort has been the
value we have seen in the collaboration itself -- my graduate
students are now able to work with leading researchers at the
other organizations," he said.  

Bellcore provides research and other technical support to the
telephone companies of Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth,
NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell Corp. and U S WEST, as
well as Cincinnati Bell, Inc., and The Southern New England
Telephone Company.