ANN ARBOR – Taking advantage of new options for network connectivity to the Internet2 national research and education Network, the Great Plains Network

announced it will double its network connectivity on

behalf of its member universities by adding a second 10 Gigabit

connection to the Internet2 Network.

This connectivity will provide the additional capacity needed to

ensure that scientists and educators from GPN member universities in

South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas,

Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa can effectively collaborate with

colleagues around the world on exciting “big science” projects.

The additional connectivity will also provides GPN a pathway for

participating in the Internet2 Commercial Peering Service which

provides peering to commodity Internet traffic. In doing so, GPN can

leverage their Internet2 investment to more cost effectively provide

higher performance commodity Internet services to its members.

?The GPN community continues to push the envelope as innovators in

major scientific research projects like the Large Hadron Collider

(LHC), the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory

(DUSEL), advanced climate modeling and interactive educational

experiences ? among many others,? said Bill Mitchell, GPN Executive

Director. ?Through our newly enhanced connectivity to the Internet2

Network ? we can assure our scientists the bandwidth they need to

conduct transformative research.?

?Internet2 has been working with our Network Members and Connector

community for some time to develop a new connectivity fee model that

would provide a better pathway for enabling enhanced hybrid network

capabilities at a substantially lower cost per-bit,? said Rob Vietzke,

Internet2 Executive Director of Network Services, ?We are pleased to

partner with GPN to enable this additional connection under our new

offering. We look forward to working with their members to take

advantage of this added capacity which holds the promise of supporting

a new generation of scientific, educational and medical applications

across the GPN region.?

In February 2010, Internet2 introduced new network connection fee

options allowing its network connectors to cost effectively choose a

2x5G or 2x10G connection to the Internet2 Network. In doing so,

members can more easily take advantage of any combination of network

services including IP, Internet2?s dynamic network service called ION

or Internet2 CPS.

GPN was the first to sign an agreement with Internet2 to benefit from

the new 2010 network fee options, designed to significantly enhance

the research and education national infrastructure. GPN was also the

very first regional connector to connect to the original Internet2

network ? called Abilene- in 1998.

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