Internet 2 Project Information

Dartmouth College has been a member of the Internet2 consortium since 1997. The Internet2 consortium includes over 180 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 is recreating the partnership among academia, industry and government that fostered the current Internet in its infancy.

On May 20, 1997, the National Science Foundation awarded Dartmouth College a two-year, $350,000 grant to enable the design, installation, and management of a high-speed network connection between the Dartmouth campus in Hanover, New Hampshire, and the NSF-funded Very-high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS). The connection point was the MCI vBNS point of presence in Charlton, MA, initially using a T3 link. This connection was operational in December 1997.

In addition, Dartmouth moved its commodity Internet traffic from T1 connections to a virtual circuit in the new link, freeing some funds from the present ISP service to help cover the cost of the new link. The original project plan can be found at: http://www.dartmouth.edu/comp/news/i2/index.html

The connection has since been upgraded to use ATM service. Dartmouth partnered with UNH-Durham to obtain OC3 service to UNH-Durham and Boston, MA. Dartmouth's Internet2 connection uses the Northern Crossroads (NOX) gigapop connected to the new Abilene Internet2 backbone.

Dartmouth’s network border router directs traffic bound for other Internet2 locations to the NOX Gigapop and routes all other traffic to the commodity Internet connection. A peering arrangement connects Dartmouth College with several local Internet Service Providers including SEGnet, SoverNet and ValleyNet.

The high-speed link has greatly enhanced research and teaching capabilities at Dartmouth, enabling high-end, communications-intensive projects in areas such as realtime video, visualization, and distance learning.