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   from the issue of September 30, 2004

     
 
Campus announces Internet access changes

This information is from Michael Ruhrdanz, director of communications & operations in Information Services.

During the summer, Information Services developed a RFP to identify one or more Commodity Internet (or "Internet-1") providers for the university. In addition to identifying the lowest cost provider, we were also looking for companies that could provide the university with redundancy, "large pipes" to the Internet and were flexible enough to allow for large capacity changes, as research projects and business needs change over time.

UNL has selected Time Warner to be our main commodity Internet provider in Lincoln. We will continue to use the Great Plains Network in Kansas City as an alternate route. We were also able to work out a relationship with Alltel so that we can maintain a physical connection to their network, helping to ensure that an alternate provider could quickly "step in" in case a serious problem developed with either of our two primary connections.

The Time Warner connection has been operational since Sept. 13.

In addition to the changes impacting UNL's Commodity Internet connection, Information Services has also been looking at ways to provide additional capacity for our Internet2 connection. Internet2 is a network dedicated to education and research use throughout the world, and UNL's reliance upon this network has continued to grow. Based upon investigations we have conducted during the past six months, we are hopeful that we will be able to increase our connection to the Internet2 network from its current 155Mb per second to 622Mb per second, greatly increasing research and educational opportunities while also reducing costs. If these plans progress as expected, we anticipate having this larger connection available for use early in 2005.

Additionally, this summer, Nebraska became part of the Internet2's K20 Initiative. One of the K20 goals is "to bring innovators in K-12, community colleges, universities, libraries and museums into appropriate regional, national and international advanced networking efforts, via the 'Sponsored Education Group Participant' process."

Participation in SEGP allows all educational institutions in Nebraska to use the benefits of Internet2 by connecting to Nebraska's Educational Network, known as Network Nebraska. Nebraska is one of 33 states participating in this program. Through the SEGP program and the Network Nebraska project, about 200 schools in Nebraska are able to communicate through UNL's Internet2 connection.


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Campus announces Internet access changes

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