Vice President's press release on high speed connection (vBNS)

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

THE WHITE HOUSE


Office of the Vice President
_______________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    Contact: (202) 456-7035
Tuesday, May 20, 1997




VICE PRESIDENT GORE ANNOUNCES NEW CONNECTIONS 
TO HIGH-SPEED NETWORK
Establishes foundation for "Next Generation Internet"




WASHINGTON -- Vice President Gore today (5/20) announced that the National 
Science Foundation is awarding $12.3 million in grants to 35 research 
institutions across the United States to allow them to connect to the very
high 
speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) -- a network that will soon be fast 
enough to transmit all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica in under a 
second.  These grants will bring the total number of research institutions 
connected to vBNS to 64.  


"Today
,s announcement is part of a strategy that will allow researchers to 
push forward the frontiers of science in ways that we can only dream about," 
said the Vice President.  "Scientists will be able to use remote 
supercomputers, collaborate effectively with other scientists around the 
country, and easily access huge quantities of data.  This will lead to
advances 
in our ability to predict the weather, find cures for genetic diseases, and 
accurately model the health of our environment."


The NSF grants help set the foundation for the Administration
,s Next 
Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, a $100 million per year, 3-year project 
that will:


 Connect more than 100 research institutions at speeds that are 100 - 1,000 
times faster than today's Internet;


 Invest in research and development for new networking technologies, such as 
the ability to handle real-time, multimedia traffic; and


 Demonstrate new applications in areas such as distance education, 
telemedicine, national security, and "collaboratories" (laboratories without 
walls).


 Private sector companies will commercialize the new technologies that are 
developed as part of the NGI initiative -- generating economic growth, new 
jobs, and new services for the tens of millions of Internet users.


 "Previous government investments in research networks, such as the ARPANET
and 
the NSFNET, have produced huge payoffs for our economy and our society," said 
the Vice President.  "The Internet boom has generated $200 billion in
economic 
value for new and existing firms, and hundreds of thousands of high-wage
jobs.  
It is also allowing us to connect all of our children to the same universe of 
knowledge.  The Next Generation Internet initiative is a critical
investment in 
our future -- and will serve as a catalyst for the new networks and networked 
applications of the 21st century."


 The NGI initiative is a partnership between industry, academia, and
government 
agencies (the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the 
Department of Energy, NASA, the National Library of Medicine, and the
National 
Institute of Standards and Technology).  It has been endorsed by industry 
leaders at companies such as MCI, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Cisco, General 
Electric, Teledesic, Novell, Ipsilon, Lucent Technologies, and Fore Systems.


 More information about the NGI is available at http://www.ngi.gov.


Attachment: A list of the 35 institutions receiving NSF grants.


###




 
Attachment


The following is a list of institutions receiving the latest round of NSF 
grants to connect to the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS).
For 
more information about specific grants, please contact the public affairs 
office at the individual institutions.


Dartmouth College
Georgia State University
Harvard University
Indiana University at Bloomington
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MCNC ( includes Duke University; North Carolina State University; 
   University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and the North Carolina 
   Supercomputing Center)
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Texas A&M University (also includes the Institute for Biosciences and 
Technology at Houston) 
The Regents of the University of California for the Consortium for 
Education Network Initiatives in California  (CENIC). Includes 
University of California campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, 
Riverside, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz; and the 
following private institutions:  Stanford University, California 
Institute of Technology, University of Southern California (USC) and 
USC's Information Sciences Institute
University of Arizona 
University of Kentucky
University of Maryland, Baltimore County 
University of New Mexico
University of Notre Dame
University of Tennessee-Knoxville 
University of Texas at Austin
University of Utah
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Vanderbilt University
Yale University


##