[ CENIC News ] TRANSITRAIL ON THE MOVE: NATIONAL PEERING PROGRAM TURNS UP CHICAGO NODE

[General CENIC news and event announcements]

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contacts:
Janis Cortese
CENIC
(714) 220-3454
<mailto:jcortese at cenic.org>jcortese at cenic.org

Jan Eveleth
Pacific Northwest Gigapop
(206) 221-2300
<mailto:eveleth at pnw-gigapop.net>eveleth at pnw-gigapop.net

                         TRANSITRAIL ON THE MOVE: NATIONAL PEERING PROGRAM 
FOOTPRINT EXPANDS WITH TURN-UP OF CHICAGO NODE

Cypress, CA ­ June 28, 2007 ­ The Corporation for Education Network 
Initiatives in California (CENIC) and Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) 
today announced the expansion
of the TransitRail commodity peering program’s national footprint with the 
activation of a connection point in Chicago, IL.

With the Chicago node now active and the national footprint in place, 
TransitRail members have more TransitRail connection points to choose from, 
allowing groups to engineer
both service redundancy and improvement of network performance through 
reduced transit times.

TransitRail's US footprint is connected by 10Gbps waves provided by 
National LambdaRail (NLR). Each TransitRail node will be connected to, and 
accessible at, NLR points of
presence throughout the United States, enabling NLR participants to 
leverage their membership in that organization even further through 
participation a national-level peering
program.

In addition, the completion of the new node solidifies TransitRail’s role 
within the widely-respected community of Tier-1 national and international 
peering networks.

TransitRail’s positive reputation as a professional, engineering, and 
policy member within this community will foster new peering relationships 
among large Tier-1 networks and
add to the effectiveness of the program for its participants, which can 
anticipate major savings with most cost-effective network peering.

                         A Case Study: Significant Cost Savings for 
Education Networks of America

For an R&E group concerned about the costs of their Internet connectivity, 
participating in TransitRail can spell significant savings over the 
higher-cost commodity Internet.
Education Networks of America (ENA) is one such organization.

According to Bob Collie, ENA’s Senior Vice President of Technology and 
Chief Technology Officer, “TransitRail has proven to be an invaluable 
resource for us to meet the rapidly
expanding bandwidth needs of the 4,500 K-12 schools and libraries ENA 
serves.”  Adds Collie, “CENIC, PNWGP, and ENA are working together to 
leverage ENA's successful
commodity peering program (and co-location facilities at major Internet 
facilities in Chicago and Ashburn) with CENIC and PNWGP's strong 
relationship with NLR and extensive
peering along the west coast to create TransitRail's national presence.”

Collie was also pleased to report that, “ENA's school and library network 
members are already seeing the benefit of TransitRail's national scope as 
over 51% of our peak
commodity Internet demand is served via our peering links.”

ENA’s experience mirrors that of other TransitRail participants including 
Oklahoma’s ONENet, Utah Education Network, Mid Atlantic Terascale 
Partnership, North Carolina
Research & Education Network, MERIT Network, Pittsburgh Supercomputing 
Center, California’s CENIC, Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and more.

Both peers and participants are expected to grow significantly as 
TransitRail continues to expand its operations.

For more information about TransitRail, please contact 
<mailto:info at transitrail.net>info at transitrail.net.

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About TransitRail

TransitRail is a national-level AUP-free commodity peering program jointly 
implemented and operated by CENIC and PNWGP in a consortia-type arrangement 
with TransitRail
members.

The full TransitRail national footprint is comprised of five nodes in 
Seattle, Sunnyvale, Los Angeles, Ashburn, and Chicago, enabling research 
and education institutions to take
advantage of low-cost network peering on a national scale.

TransitRail peers with major ISPs, and its current participant base 
represents a substantial segment of the research and education community 
within the United States.
ransitRail is available to any interested R&E network groups.

Joint operations of a peering facility are not new to PNWGP and CENIC. 
Together, they have a combined track record of nearly 20 years of commodity 
peering activity, and since
2004, they have successfully and jointly operated the extended R&E Pacific 
Wave peering facilities (Seattle, Sunnyvale and Los Angeles). Their working 
relationship is already
well cemented with communications and processes that can be leveraged in 
support of TransitRail.

CENIC and PNWGP staff are experienced in all facets of peering: peering 
solicitations, contracts, policies, infrastructure, monitoring, reporting, 
routing, troubleshooting,
NOC-related functions and participant support.

CENIC and PNWGP already have over 80 established peering relationships with 
major regional and national entities. A majority of CENIC's and PNWGP's 
existing commodity
peers will all be available for participation in TransitRail.

More information about TransitRail can be found at 
<http://www.transitrail.net/>http://www.transitrail.net/.

More information about CENIC can be found at 
<http://www.cenic.org/>http://www.cenic.org/.

More information about Pacific Northwest Gigapop can be found at 
<http://www.pnwgp.net/>http://www.pnwgp.net/.

More information about National LambdaRail can be found at 
<http://www.nlr.net/>http://www.nlr.net/.

More information about ENA can be found at 
<http://www.ena.com/>http://www.ena.com/.

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