October 2005 CENIC Today
Sharleen Kim
editor at cenic.org
Fri Oct 28 15:47:56 PDT 2005
CENIC TODAY
Volume 8, Issue 10
October 28, 2005
Welcome to CENIC Today, the monthly newsletter of the Corporation for
Education Network Initiatives in California.
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IN THIS ISSUE
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CENIC NEWS
1. President's Message
2. NOC Report
3. Commodity Peering Improvements
4. CSU Campus Access Infrastructure Initiative (CAI) Update
5. Coachella Valley Project
6. California Community Colleges Update
7. CENIC 2006-Your Connection to the World Annual Conference
8. Secure IT 2006: Information Technology and Network Security
Conference
NATIONAL NETWORKING NEWS
1. FCC Chairman Urges Better Funding For Rural Telecom Services
2. Legislation Can't Keep Pace with Technology
3. New Rules On Internet Wiretapping Challenged
4. FCC Classifies Wireline Broadband Internet Access Service as an
Information Service
5. Mergers Win First Approval-SBC and Verizon Pass Justice Dept.; FCC
Yet to Rule
6. UCHRI Launches Cyberinfrastructure for Humanities, Arts and Social
Sciences
7. Stanford Scientists Design Germanium-Based Device That May Improve
Speed of Optical Networks
8. The Time Is Now: Bust Up the Box!
ABOUT CENIC
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
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CENIC NEWS
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1. President's Message
I’d like to share with the readers of CENIC Today the revised CENIC
mission and goals which resulted from discussions during the annual
CENIC Board retreat conducted last month at the Kellogg Center, Cal
Poly Pomona. This retreat, held for the fifth year, provides the Board
an opportunity to reevaluate our purpose and focus on goals and
objectives.
Each year’s retreat has been productive, with a lot of spirited
discussion directed by an outside facilitator. At the beginning of
the meeting, John Silvester, Chair of the CENIC Board, officially
welcomed to the Board John Anderson, Superintendent of the Imperial
County Office of Education, Paul Tichinin, Superintendent of the
Mendocino County Office of Education, and Don McNelis, Superintendent
of the Butte County Office of Education. This year’s retreat was
enriched by having these K-12 representatives on the Board for the
first time.
The Board revisited CENIC’s mission and goals as part of the
discussion. At the end of the retreat, we had developed a revised
mission and goals. After some wordsmithing, review and approval by the
officers of the Board, the following are our revised mission and goals.
MISSION: The mission of the Corporation for Education and Network
Initiatives in California (CENIC) is to develop, deploy and operate
leading edge network-based services and to facilitate and coordinate
their use for the research and education community to advance learning
and innovation.
GOALS:
• Operate a robust, cost effective, state-of-the-art communications
network for participating education and research institutions;
• Promote high quality end-to-end network services and
interoperability among participating institutions;
• Advance the collective and individual interests of participating
CENIC institutions by leveraging their diversity and relationships to
create benefits to individual members;
• Provide a competitive advantage in the global marketplace to the
CENIC Associates’ education and research communities;
• Become California’s recognized provider of network services for
education and research; and,
• Stimulate innovation in teaching, learning and research through use
of the network.
CENIC’s activities and initiatives are designed to further these
mission and goals. If readers have suggestions as to how CENIC can
better address either the mission or goals, please don’t hesitate to
send me an email note at: jdolgonas at cenic.org.
Source: Jim Dolgonas, CENIC
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2. NOC Report
Support for NANOG Conference
The North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) is an educational
and operational forum for the coordination and dissemination of
technical information related to backbone/enterprise networking
technologies and operational practices. NANOG meetings are held three
times each year, and include two days of short presentations, plus
afternoon and evening tutorial sessions. The fall NANOG meeting this
year was held in Los Angeles from October 23-25, 2006. CENIC provided
IPv6, IPv4, and multicast network services in support of both the NANOG
conference and the ARIN meeting that followed on October 26-28. 2006.
Support for Keystone Conference
CENIC's CalREN Video Services (CVS) provided a Multipoint Control Unit
(MCU) in support of the second annual Keystone Conference held Oct.
3-5, 2005. The conference used interactive videoconferencing to
connect speakers and participants from multiple locations around the
globe in a highly successful conference. The primary goal of the
Keystone Conference was to demonstrate and discuss best practice uses
of technology in education.
Through an elaborate communications grid, MCU's provided by CENIC and
others formed the backbone of the conference, simultaneously
broadcasting three program strands. Conference participants were able
to choose programs from the different strands, customizing a conference
experience that best served their needs. More than 125 educators
attended the conference on site in Indianapolis. Advanced technology
provided by MCU's at organizations such as CENIC enabled the conference
to reach more than 1,000 other professionals in 90 locations in 28
states and in six other countries. Remote participants could not only
access but also interact with presenters from their local
videoconferencing facilities. In total, more than 1,100 educators,
videoconferencing leaders, content providers and industry
representatives participated in the 2005 Keystone Conference.
Conference organizers commended CENIC's role in providing technical
support for the conference. "Thanks to the support of MCU's from
throughout the United States - including CENIC - the conference had
impressive impact around the globe," said executive planning committee
member Ruth Blankenbaker, Executive Director of the Center for
Interactive Learning and Collaboration. For more information, please
visit the Keystone Conference web site at www.keystoneconference.org.
Source: Sherilyn Evans, CENIC
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3. Commodity Peering Improvements
CENIC Network Engineering staff has worked to significantly increase
the amount of commodity Internet traffic being exchanged with network
peers, rather than with transit providers. Approximately 600 Mbps of
additional traffic from new or existing peers has been moved from the
for-fee transit providers, representing a cost savings to CENIC
Associates of approximately $57,000/month.
CENIC's peering infrastructure was also utilized to support the North
American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) conference in Los Angeles
this month, carrying a significant portion of that conference's
traffic.
Source: Brian Court, CENIC
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4. CSU Campus Access Infrastructure Initiative (CAI) Update
During the month of September, CSU Fresno and Humboldt State University
were migrated to their GigE connections. CSU Fresno's OC-3 remains in
place to provide diversity until their second GigE connection over
CENIC managed fiber is completed. Humboldt State's connections have
been completed and this campus currently has diverse GigE and OC-3
connections to the CalREN network.
The second GigE connection to San Francisco State University was put
into production in early October 2005. This campus currently has two
GigE connections to the CalREN network. Ultimately, one of the two
GigE connections will be replaced with CENIC provided and managed
fiber.
Sonoma State University is scheduled to put its GigE connection into
production on October 30, 2005. This campus will retain its OC3
connection for diversity until it can be replaced with a second GigE
connection over CENIC managed fiber.
Preparation and construction work is continuing to progress on the
CENIC managed fiber connections to Cal Poly Pomona, CSU San Bernardino,
CSU Monterey Bay and California Maritime Academy.
An updated CAI installation schedule has recently been posted and is
available online at http://www.cenic.org/projects/cai/.
Source: Ed Smith, CENIC
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5. Coachella Valley Project
Duct leases have been obtained and construction has begun on the
Coachella Valley Metropolitan Area fiber network. MAN construction
will be completed in December. By that time, completion of a small
construction project in Yuma will allow the lighting of a second
CalREN-DC backbone path connecting Palm Desert to San Diego. This will
allow the replacement of leased SONET services to College of the Desert
and to the Indio office of the Riverside County Office of Education
with CalREN Gigabit Ethernet connections, which will provide increased
bandwidth at a reduced cost.
The connection of these sites, together with extending the MAN two
small sites in the area, will signal the completion of the Coachella
Valley project.
Source: Greg Scott, CENIC
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6. California Community Colleges Update
Los Positas College in Livermore is the latest California Community
College to get its own DS-3 connection to the CalREN-DC network.
Columbia College in Sonora is slated to get its DS-3 circuit in
November 2005. Provisioning and installation work is progressing on a
GigE connection to Palomar College in San Marcos. This high-speed
circuit will serve both the campus as well as the California Community
Colleges Satellite Network known as CCCSAT.
One of the many challenges we have had was to bring a high-speed
circuit to Palo Verde College in Blythe. However, a solution has been
identified and construction is underway to bring DS-3 connectivity to
Palo Verde College.
Source: Ed Smith, CENIC
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7. CENIC 2006-Your Connection to the World Annual Conference
CENIC invites you to its 10th annual conference, CENIC 2006 – Your
Connection to the World. Quite possibly the most important networking
and educational event of the year, CENIC 2006 is your opportunity to
connect with California’s key high-performance networking professionals
– educators, researchers, business people and government
representatives – and help advance the vision of tomorrow’s Internet.
The 2006 conference offers three days, March 13-15, 2006, of
stimulating tracks, influential speakers and a rich array of
collaborative panels amidst the diverse downtown setting of the Oakland
Marriott City Center hotel and convention center. For the 10th annual
meeting, a gigabit connection to the CalREN network will be available
for real-time demonstrations. For more information and to submit a
conference presentation proposal, visit
http://www.cenic.org/events/cenic2006/callforpresentations.htm.
Note: The deadline for presentation proposals is November 18, 2005.
Source: Tad Reynales, 2006 Annual Conference Program Chair
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8. Secure IT 2006: Information Technology and Network Security
Conference
California State University, San Bernardino will be hosting the 4th
annual conference to be held at the Disneyland Hotel, March 21-24,
2006. This conference is being presented by the California State
University, the California Community Colleges and the Foundation for
California Community Colleges to provide security professionals with
the most up-to-date information, tools, trends, legislation, products,
services, and strategies for addressing your information and network
security issues. For conference information and updates, please visit
the Secure IT web site at: http://www.secureitconf.com.
Source: Catherine McKenzie, California Community College Chancellors
Office
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NATIONAL NETWORKING NEWS
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1. FCC Chairman Urges Better Funding For Rural Telecom Services
By J. Nicholas Hoover
Oct. 26, 2005
The declining costs of phone services, introduction of technologies
like voice-over-IP, and a blurring of the lines of what defines a
telecom company have decreased fund contributions for rural areas.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told Telecom
'05 conference attendees in Las Vegas yesterday that he hopes the
government will act soon to improve funding for advanced telecom
services for rural and isolated businesses, schools and consumers.
"The commission needs to revise the way in which it collects universal
service funds," Martin said. The chairman, who grew up in rural North
Carolina, noted that the FCC is charged with assuring that rural
America doesn't get left behind in services.
The current Universal Services Fund requires interstate telecom
carriers to pay taxes into the fund based on their revenue. Introducing
broadband and other high-tech telecommunications services to rural
areas is cost-prohibitive for carriers, so the fund ensures service by
subsidizing small rural carriers, often to the point where subsidies
account for a large portion of their revenue.
However, the declining costs of phone services, introduction of
technologies like voice-over-IP, and a blurring of the lines of what
defines a telecom company have decreased fund contributions and changed
the playing field. In Martin's mind, this has created an "outdated"
system that ignores an evolving telecommunications marketplace.
Martin proposed an alternative collection scheme whereby companies
would pay taxes based on the number of lines they service, not on their
total revenues. He noted not everyone is happy with the proposal, and
said he is open to any proposal that would make universal service fund
contributions more technology-neutral.
Source: Information Week (
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?
articleID=172900715 )
2. Legislation Can't Keep Pace with Technology
By Manav Tanneeru
October 18, 2005
Industry observers say outdated regulations a drag on innovation.
Technological innovation has always ignited a debate over how much
government should be involved in its development, and it seems to be no
different with broadband.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated that phone companies share
their lines to allow long distance firms to enter local markets and
vice versa -- the idea being that the consumer then would have more
choices.
The act, signed nearly 10 years ago by President Clinton, had
unintended consequences for broadband development, and industry
observers contend an overhaul of the act would be an important step
toward clarifying the legislative landscape.
"The '96 act, when it regulates the telephone system, imagined a world
[where new telephone companies] would compete with existing telephone
companies," said Douglas Lichtman, a professor who specializes in
telecommunications law and policy at the University of Chicago Law
School.
"It built all these regulations about shared access to existing phone
networks on the theory that you'd need a new telephone company to
compete with an old telephone company, so you have to share access to
some part of the existing network."
Though the act did have provisions for emerging technologies, it did
not fully anticipate that cable companies would one day offer voice
services, phone companies would offer video services, and that there
would be Web and wireless services that offer a hybrid of both.
"There are two ways the '96 act is outdated: One is that it doesn't
regulate these new technologies themselves, and some of them maybe
would benefit from a little guidance and regulation," Lichtman said.
"But two, it regulates the phone system kind of ignoring these new
technologies, and even the old technology would be regulated
differently once we understood these new technologies would come into
the fore."
The 1996 act, though it deals primarily with the phone industry,
allowed for a framework to address nascent technologies, Lichtman said.
Guided in part by the 1996 act, the Federal Communications Commission
now classifies broadband into two categories: an unregulated
information service or a regulated telecommunications service.
The former is generally applied to broadband services offered by cable
companies, while the latter is applied to DSL services offered by phone
companies.
The distinction is important on several levels. Because of the 1996
act, the phone companies had to share their wires, whereas the cable
services did not. The rates for services that are described as
"telecommunications" are regulated, whereas those classified as
"information" are not.
"The key there is that cable didn't have to worry about making an
investment and sharing it with their competitors. We've been subject to
that kind of framework since the '96 act was implemented," said Gregg
Morton, vice president of legislative affairs for BellSouth Corp.
The FCC earlier this year issued an order placing telephone and cable
companies offering broadband services under the same banner.
"Probably the biggest legacy of the act is litigation," Morton said.
"We have had challenge after challenge after challenge to the rules
that implemented the act, and we still don't have final rules in place,
and that brings uncertainty, and uncertainty is not good for any
industry, including the telecom industry."
U.S. lags behind other countries
Due to that uncertainty, critics say, the United States now lags behind
countries such as South Korea and Japan in Internet and wireless
development, where it once was the leader.
"Today, most U.S. homes can access only 'basic' broadband, among the
slowest, most expensive and least reliable in the developed world, and
the United States has fallen even further behind in mobile phone-based
Internet access," Thomas Bleha wrote in a May/June 2005 article in
Foreign Affairs magazine.
Industry observers say there are reasons why those countries have
surged ahead, primarily government subsidization, the way the
population has settled in those countries, and large segments of
residents who have bypassed traditional telephony services in favor of
broadband access, spurring the market.
With the U.S. market lagging behind, some municipalities such as
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have acted on their own.
Philadelphia has picked Earthlink Inc. to build a wireless network that
will cover 135 miles. The city aims to offer free wireless access in
public parks and spaces as part of the plan.
In Utah, 14 cities, frustrated by the lack of access, have come
together to create the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure
Agency, or UTOPIA, a project working on constructing the infrastructure
needed to offer broadband services in those localities. The project
began in 2002, and construction started in six of the cities in August
2004.
"By January of next year, we should have 40,000 homes and businesses
that should get the service in six of those 14 cities, and we hope to
continuously construct over the next three years," said Paul Morris,
executive director of UTOPIA.
Municipalities, however, face several obstacles in trying to offer
broadband services, including opposition from state legislatures. Some
20 states have either passed or are considering legislation barring
municipalities from planning broadband initiatives.
The legislatures may be worried the municipalities could stifle market
competition, or that they may be overwhelmed by the demands of
sustaining the services, said Lichtman, the law professor.
The industry is also wary of municipalities taking the lead, arguing
that offering such access is a complicated matter.
"There are a number of examples of municipalities getting into the
telecommunications business and failing miserably," BellSouth's Morton
said. "It's been a waste of taxpayer money, and it requires a certain
level of expertise that municipalities often don't have."
But UTOPIA's Morris disagrees.
"Municipalities are run by elected officials just like congressmen are
elected, and they can make those decisions, and if the citizens are
unhappy they can boot them out. So, why would you pre-empt the whole
country, when you've got these individual needs for cities that are not
getting served adequately?" Morris argued, citing that the Utah
Legislature has approved the public-private project he heads.
Solutions for broadband development
Several government-related solutions have been proposed to help in
pushing broadband development.
Some observers suggest a new communications act ought to be enacted,
especially to change the way the FCC regulates the market.
The FCC ought to become more like the Federal Trade Commission and only
intervene when the consumer is threatened by the market, argued
Randolph J. May in a July 2005 article for CNET.
"Under the new competition-based standard, the FCC's focus would shift
to protecting consumers, rather than competitors, which too often in
the past has been its preoccupation," wrote May of the Progress and
Freedom Foundation, a self-described "market-oriented" think tank.
Some critics say changing the way the United States allocates its
digital spectrum may help development, especially the wireless sector.
"There's a limited amount of stuff that we can put into the air. Right
now, we've given a lot of the space to normal television signals,"
Lichtman said.
"We've given more recently to ABC, CBS and NBC because of
high-definition television. So, right now, more than ever before, we've
got tons of spectrum locked up in television, and it is right to say
that if we didn't have that for television, we might have it for other
things, and if it were available for other things, those things might
take off faster."
Others have suggested the government should become more active in
pushing broadband innovation.
"To move forward, the [Bush] administration should quickly take two
steps. First, it should explain clearly the profound ways in which
broadband will change work, learning and leisure in the United States,"
Bleha wrote. "Second, the administration should push the President's
Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), a group of
private-sector IT leaders and academics, to play a key leadership role
in advancing broadband deployment."
But Robert Crandall, an economist at the Brookings Institution, a
nonpartisan think tank, advocates a more laissez-faire approach.
"The technology is too uncertain to figure out what to invest in, and
it's unclear which companies and competitors should receive government
subsidies," he said.
The debate over how much government should be involved in developing
the infrastructure for broadband services is not likely to end any time
soon.
"The Internet, I think you could argue, is the greatest free market
success in the history of man," Morton said. "That has all evolved
without one ounce of government regulation, and it is a tremendous
success, and it works. We think that's a pretty good model to follow
when you look at continuing to get broadband deployed initially, and
getting greater speeds deployed after that."
Lichtman added, "It depends on where you put your confidence. Is there
a reason you think the market will do a bad job, either under-investing
or over-investing in these cases? On the other side, do you have any
reason to think the government is going to be good at figuring out how
much to invest in a new technology?"
Source: CNN (
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/10/17/wireless.legislation/index.html)
3. New Rules On Internet Wiretapping Challenged
By Arshad Mohammed
October 26, 2005
New federal wiretapping rules that would make it easier for law
enforcement to monitor e-mails and Internet-based phone calls were
challenged by privacy, high-tech and telecommunications groups in
federal court yesterday.
The groups argued that the rules would force broadband Internet service
providers, including universities and libraries, to pay for redesigning
their networks to make them more accessible to court-ordered wiretaps.
The groups also said the Federal Communications Commission rules,
scheduled to take effect in May 2007, could erode civil liberties and
stifle Internet innovation by imposing technological demands on
developers.
"It's simply a very bad idea for privacy and for free speech for the
government to design any technology, much less the Internet, to be
surveillance-friendly," said Lee Tien, a senior staff lawyer with the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit privacy rights group.
The government was trying to "build tentacles of control throughout
telecommunications networks," Tien said.
The FCC rules make broadband Internet providers and voice over Internet
protocol companies subject to a 1994 federal law that requires telecom
companies to assist law enforcement agencies in carrying out
court-ordered wiretaps. The Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act requires telecom carriers to design their networks so
they can quickly intercept communications and deliver them to the
government when presented with a court order.
In adopting the rules, the FCC said it wanted to ensure the government
could carry out wiretaps as more communications move from the
traditional telephone system to the Internet.
"It is clearly not in the public interest to allow terrorists and
criminals to avoid lawful surveillance by law enforcement agencies,"
the commission wrote in its order.
Opponents argued the law was tailored for a simpler, earlier era of
traditional telephone service and could cripple the evolution of the
Internet by forcing engineers to design products so they can be easily
monitored by the government.
The 1994 law "will have a devastating impact on the whole model of
technical innovation on the Internet," said John Morris, staff counsel
for the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, which filed
an appeal of the rules with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit yesterday.
"The Internet evolves through many tens of thousands, or hundreds of
thousands, of innovators coming up with brand new ideas," he said.
"That is exactly what will be squelched."
Morris said his group did not dispute the idea that the government
should be able to carry out court-ordered wiretaps, but rather argued
that the 1994 law was a blunt instrument ill-suited for the Internet
age.
He said the matter should be referred to Congress, which "can tailor
the obligations to the Internet context as opposed to importing the
very clumsy [telephone system] obligations and imposing them on the
Internet."
The American Council on Education, a higher-education trade group,
separately asked the court Monday to review the rules.
"We fear that doing what they want will require every router and every
switch in an IT system to be replaced," said Terry W. Hartle, the
council's senior vice president. He estimated that the upgrades could
cost colleges and universities $6 billion to $7 billion.
"Our quarrel with them is fairly specific," Hartle said. "We are
concerned about the cost, and the complexity, and the schedule on which
they want this accomplished."
Spokesmen for the FCC and the Justice Department declined comment on
the court challenges.
Source: Washington Post (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/
AR2005102501807.html )
4. FCC Classifies Wireline Broadband Internet Access Service as an
Information Service
October 3, 2005
". . . the appropriate framework for wireline broadband Internet access
service, including its transmission component, is one that is eligible
for a lighter regulatory touch. In the past, the primary, if not sole,
facilities-based platform available for the provision of “information
services” to consumers was an incumbent local exchange carrier’s
telephone network. By contrast, the record before us demonstrates that
the broadband Internet access market today is characterized by several
emerging platforms and providers, both intermodal and intramodal, in
most areas of the country. We are confident that the regulatory regime
we adopt in this Order will promote the availability of competitive
broadband Internet access services to consumers, via multiple
platforms, while ensuring adequate incentives are in place to encourage
the deployment and innovation of broadband platforms consistent with
our obligations and mandates under the Act."
Source: California Telephone Association (
http://www.caltelassn.com/reports05/BroadbandNPRN.pdf)
5. Mergers Win First Approval-SBC and Verizon Pass Justice Dept.; FCC
Yet to Rule
By Arshad Mohammed
October 28, 2005
The Justice Department yesterday gave conditional approval to a pair of
mergers that make the nation's two largest phone companies far bigger
than any other competitors, clearing the way for the Federal
Communications Commission to act on the deals, perhaps as soon as
today.
The department said it would permit SBC Communications Inc.'s $16
billion acquisition of AT&T Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.'s
$8.5 billion purchase of MCI Inc., provided the companies take steps to
maintain competition for some business customers. SBC said yesterday
that it will adopt the venerable AT&T name once the merger is
completed, preserving a brand whose roots go back to the invention of
the telephone.
The resulting companies will control the vast majority of traditional
telephone service in many regions of the country. Critics say that
power will lead to rising phone bills for consumers, but the companies
argue that technology has remade the telecom industry and that
competition now comes from wireless, cable and Internet phone
companies.
The mergers also must pass muster with the FCC, which is scheduled to
meet today and might impose more conditions than those sought by the
Justice Department.
The Justice Department negotiated agreements with New York-based
Verizon and San Antonio-based SBC to lease certain high-capacity lines
to competitors for at least a decade. Each company must do this with
lines serving more than 350 buildings around the country.
Without the condition, the businesses in these buildings -- including
dozens in the Baltimore-Washington area -- would have had only one
choice for service, which critics think would have allowed the merged
companies to raise prices with impunity.
The Justice Department did not impose conditions that directly affect
residential consumers, a decision that reflects the view that people
increasingly can get local telephone service from cable, Internet and
mobile phone providers.
Critics said the mergers would push up prices, arguing there are still
only two main pipelines to consumer homes -- phone and cable wires --
and that wider competition will take years to build up.
"These mergers undermine growing competition in telecom markets and
will surely lead to inflated prices for all telecom and Internet-based
services for years to come," said Gene Kimmelman, senior director of
public policy at Consumers Union.
In permitting the mergers, the Justice Department is reassembling parts
of the AT&T system broken apart in 1984 when the government forced the
monopoly to sever its lucrative long-distance arm from the Bell local
phone companies in an effort to foster competition.
The fact that it is allowing the mergers to go forward reflects the
diminished state of Bedminster, N.J.-based AT&T and Ashburn-based MCI,
whose long-distance profits have been eaten away by competition from
other providers and mobile and local phone companies.
FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin has proposed approving the mergers with no
conditions but he needs the votes of at least one of the FCC's two
Democrats to prevail.
Among other things, the Democrats want SBC and Verizon to sell
stand-alone digital subscriber line (DSL) high-speed Internet access at
prices that make Internet phone service a viable competitor.
They also want to make sure rates don't go up for business customers
with their own "special access" lines. In addition, the Democrats want
to prevent the "backbone" companies that carry Internet traffic from
arbitrarily cutting each other off, and favor "net neutrality"
protections to keep local phone companies from using their networks to
interfere with people accessing Internet-based services.
Source: Washington Post (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/
AR2005102701241_pf.html )
6. UCHRI Launches Cyberinfrastructure for Humanities, Arts and Social
Sciences
Irvine, October 12, 2005:
The University of California Research Institute (UCHRI) today announced
the launch of the HASS Grid, a major cyberinfrastructure initiative to
strengthen research support for the humanities, arts and social
sciences.
The HASS Grid will provide a home for digitized artifacts including
3-D, audio, video and text collections vital to research in the HASS
communities. Dr. David Theo Goldberg, director of UCHRI, explains: “The
HASS Grid provides a base platform for integrating the full range of
multimedia cyber-tools in support of accessing and analyzing large
databases across the humanities, arts and social sciences. It will
prove crucial for future work in cultural representation, the
understanding of material culture, their historical conditions and
social implications. But it will also offer opportunities to a broader
range of intellectual communities to revisit older interests such as
the analysis of medieval manuscripts.”
In July 2005 UCHRI began the construction and deployment of
cyberbricks. These bricks or storage computers enable access to
aggregated, integrated, data-storage systems. Through this system,
UCHRI will provide a low-cost, scalable, long-term archive for HASS
data collections. UCHRI intends to bring 25 terabytes of storage space
online by January 2006.
Initially the HASS Grid will be a test-bed for HASS researchers
throughout the University of California. Starting in spring 2006, the
system will be released to a wider audience.
UCHRI is working with the Center for Information Technology Research in
the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at UC Berkeley and the San Diego
Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego to create the systems for
storing, accessing, analyzing, and manipulating the data collections
crucial to HASS research. Together UCHRI, CITRIS and SDSC are building
an interface between the CITRIS Digital Gallery Builder, a 3-D virtual
world space for presenting and collaborating on digital collections,
and SDSC’s Storage Resource Broker, a client-server middleware designed
to manage file collections in heterogeneous, distributed environments.
The term “cyberinfrastructure,” coined by a National Science Foundation
blue-ribbon committee, describes new research environments in which
advanced computational, collaborative, data acquisition and management
services are available to researchers through high-performance
networks. To date, the great majority of these new integrated computing
environments have been targeted at the sciences.
Grid technology is coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in
multi-institutional virtual organizations. Data and computational grids
consist of advanced computer technology for sharing resources more
effectively. They are part of cutting-edge cyberinfrastructure
development that is paving the way for the next generation of
information and communications technology and management tools by
combining individual desk-top computers into a seamless networks.
The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) is a
multicampus research unit of the UC Office of the President. UCHRI is
based on the UC Irvine campus and serves all ten campuses in the UC
system. Recognized nationally and internationally, the Institute
promotes collaborative work by teams of researchers representing
different fields and institutions both within and beyond the University
of California. http://www.uchri.org
The University of California Center for Information Technology Research
in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) was established to sponsor
collaborative information technology research that will ultimately
provide solutions to challenge social and commercial problems affecting
the quality of life of all Californians. The set of applications
includes energy efficiency, transportation, environmental monitoring,
seismic safety, education, cultural research and health care.
http://www.citris.berkeley.edu;
http://www.citris-uc.org/hosted/projects/ith/gallery
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is a world leader in using,
innovating and providing information technology to enable innovation in
science, engineering, technology development and their applications.
SDSC has assumed a leadership role as a national cyberinfrastructure
center, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
http://www.sdsc.edu
Contact:
Kevin D. Franklin, Deputy Director
UC Humanities Research Institute
(949) 824-4858
Source: UC Humanities Research Institute (
http://www.uchri.org/main.php?page_id=154)
7. Stanford Scientists Design Germanium-Based Device That May Improve
Speed of Optical Networks
By Vincent Kiernan
October 27, 2006
In a finding that could lead to more-powerful optical computer
networks, researchers at Stanford University have shown that the
element germanium can be used to fashion a shutterlike device to
control a laser beam.
Such "optoelectronic" devices are used in optical networks, in which
computer data are transmitted through fiber-optic lines as bursts of
laser light.
At present, optoelectronic devices are manufactured out of exotic
materials such as gallium arsenide, which are difficult and expensive
to make and to integrate with more common, silicon-based
semiconductors.
But germanium is commonly used in semiconductors, so a germanium-based
optoelectronic device could be less expensive to manufacture. It could
also operate at higher speeds than current optoelectronic devices, the
researchers say. Faster devices would increase the capacity of an
optical network by enabling it to move more data in a given period of
time.
In the Stanford project, detailed in a report in today's issue of
Nature, researchers used layers of germanium and silicon to construct a
tiny "optical modulator" that is less than one one-thousandth of a
millimeter thick. Depending on the electrical voltage running across
the modulator, it either blocks or transmits a laser beam striking it.
"It has real potential," said James S. Harris, a professor of
engineering at Stanford and one of the paper's eight authors. The
research was financed by the Intel Corporation and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
"I think it will enable speeding up of the optical network well above
where it is today," said Mr. Harris.
In a commentary published in the same issue of Nature, Gareth Parry, a
professor of physics at Imperial College London, observed, "Let's hope
they are right."
One key question, he wrote, is whether the fabrication process used by
the Stanford team would be amenable to mass production at semiconductor
factories.
Another scientist agreed. "Scientifically, it is amazing work," said
Daniel J. Blumenthal, a professor of electrical and computer
engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara and a
member of the Board of Directors of National LambdaRail, a national
fiber-optic network for colleges.
But, like Mr. Parry, Mr. Blumenthal cautioned that the research faces
many more challenges before it is ready for semiconductor prime time.
As just one example, Mr. Blumenthal said that the Stanford device did
not produce enough contrast between the "light" and "dark" settings of
the shutter. For practical use, the contrast will have to be as much as
50 times sharper, he said.
Stanford's Mr. Harris remained confident. "We think it will be really
easy to introduce this into silicon technology," he said.
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education (
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/10/2005102703t.htm)
8. The Time Is Now: Bust Up the Box!
John Markoff
October 5, 2005
San Diego - COMPUTING is breaking out of the beige box. Millions of
miles of fiber-optic cables are weaving together software that lives on
the Internet and data moving at the speed of light into a single global
fabric.
It has been almost two decades since Sun Microsystems pioneered the
slogan "the network is the computer." Today, after many false starts,
that idea is a reality.
Along with relentless technical advances, one force behind this change
has been the billions of dollars spent by telecom companies on
fiber-optic lines before the end of the tech boom. That splurge was a
factor in driving many of those companies into bankruptcy, but also
helped reduce the cost of transmitting data.
For decades increases in the speeds of computer networks trailed the
exponentially accelerating speed of microprocessor chips. Now the
balance between the power of computer processing and networking has
fundamentally reversed, and the rapid rise of transmission speeds is
beginning to have a revolutionary impact on how computers are used and
what they can do.
"That box of things that used to be contained inside of your PC now
gets spread out literally on a global basis," said Mike Volpi, a senior
vice president at Cisco Systems, the largest networking company in the
world. The changes are taking place both at the highest end of the
supercomputing world and just as swiftly in the consumer World Wide
Web.
Where software applications like Microsoft Word or Autodesk's AutoCAD
were once standalone monoliths that functioned in just a single
machine, the new distributed applications are now remarkably adaptable.
They are frequently spread across large and small computer systems in
order to harness more processing power, and programs now dart about
through the networks, relocating themselves to save power or to use
resources more efficiently.
Google is perhaps the most extreme example of the future of networked
computing. Today the company is a major buyer of fiber-optic network
capacity to interconnect a computing system that is spread over more
than 100,000 processors in over a dozen data centers around the world.
Moreover, for everyday Web surfers, an exploding array of services is
being built by using the software equivalent of Lego blocks, as
companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft begin to make software
components available to "mash-up," that is, to link programs running on
different servers in different places, in new distributed applications
on multiple computers and frequently available free.
Earlier this year a classic mash-up was created by Paul Rademacher, a
Silicon Valley programmer who connected apartment rentals on the
Craigslist Web site with Google Maps, in the process creating a new Web
service, a program that resides simultaneously in many places on the
Internet.
That model has initiated a growing array of applications involving
so-called distributed computing for corporations, consumers and
scientists. "Today we are Google-mashing everything," said Bill St.
Arnaud, senior director of advanced networks for Canarie, a
government-sponsored high-speed network based in Ottawa that links
research laboratories.
It is now possible to connect computers on opposite sides of the world
by an optical fiber capable of carrying 10 billion bits of information
a second.
Known as "lambdas" - an industry term for optical circuits that carry
data - these data superhighways are making it possible to create a new
class of supercomputers that have no geographical boundaries.
Such virtual computers are possible to create today because the new
optical networks have delays of only the time it takes the speed of
light to travel from one point to another. They offer a bridge to a new
era of computing.
"People have spoken about how computer networks have flattened the
world," said Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who is director of the
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology,
known as Calit2, an interdisciplinary research laboratory which will
officially open this month at the University of California, San Diego,
in La Jolla, and the University of California, Irvine. "But it's more
than that, distance is vanishing and the world is now shrinking to a
single point."
The implications of ultrafast computer networks composed of optical
fibers that stretch around the globe could be seen clearly last month
at a supercomputer network workshop, iGrid 2005, held at Calit2's La
Jolla building.
This is the fourth such workshop since 1998. They have been held
irregularly by scientists and engineers to help master new network and
computing technologies, and to build prototypes of computing
applications that can span the globe.
Mr. Smarr envisions the new laboratory as the model for the scientific
research center of the future. He is bringing together scientific and
engineering disciplines and providing them with a range of laboratories
that include nanofabrication clean rooms and facilities for visualizing
scientific information.
Multimedia artists will be an integral part of the research center and
will explore new art forms made possible by high-speed networking.
For example, at the building dedication later this month, Adriene
Jenik, an associate professor of computer and media arts at the
University of California, San Diego, will preview Specflic 2.0, what
she describes as an example of "speculative distributed cinema." This
next-generation style movie will appear on a cluster of networked
displays in the courtyard of the new building. Each display will be a
window into a different part of the narrative, which will be taking
place with both live and filmed actors.
"The story isn't just told, it's experienced," she said.
At iGrid last month a network capacity of 100 billion bits per second
was connected to the new Calit2 building, allowing prototypes of
scientific visualization applications that have not previously been
possible.
There were demonstrations of brute networking power: using networks
capable of carrying more than a billion bits of data a second to carry
a super high-definition video conference over 9,000 miles between Tokyo
and La Jolla, accompanied by a separate stream of hi-fidelity digital
sound produced by musicians at LucasArts in Northern California.
There were also the first demonstrations of a new generation of
supercomputing power made possible by emerging optical networks like
the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, the National Lambda Rail and
Teragrid.
These networks not only make it possible to harness the power of
multiple supercomputers, but they also allow scientists to create a new
class of instruments, in which huge volumes of scientific data are
easily available to researchers around the globe.
For example, at the iGrid symposium scientists showed the first
high-definition digital video broadcast from an undersea volcanic vent
more than a mile beneath the ocean off the northwest coast of the
United States.
The video comes from a new undersea observatory being constructed by a
United States-Canadian partnership. The system will consist of a web of
computers interconnected by fiber-optic sensors on the sea floor
intended to monitor everything from geological to climate changes.
The distributed computing system will collect data from thousands of
sensors of different types that allow the researchers to build a
complete picture of the undersea world.
"This is the new computational science," said Edward Lazowska, a
computer scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle and one
of the project investigators. In the future, he said, science will be
based on data flowing across computer networks that can then be
visualized and mined.
For Mr. Smarr, the power of visualization and the need for very
high-speed networks was underscored when a team of researchers at the
TelaScience Laboratory at San Diego State University worked to assist
rescue teams responding to the Indian Ocean tsunami and to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita.
By quickly processing digital satellite image data, the researchers at
the university were able to support rescuers with detailed visual maps.
By processing satellite imagery of the Gulf Coast in the wake of
Katrina, the researchers correlated satellite imagery with address
information, permitting individuals and rescuers to see the impact of
the flooding on homes.
The researchers were slowed, Mr. Smarr said, when it took 10 days to
transfer the digital data from a United States Geological Survey
computer because of a slow computer network.
In commercial data centers, thousands or tens of thousands of server
computers can be more rationally used as workloads are moved around to
mirror changing needs.
While the United States has been relatively slow in deploying fiber
optics directly to homes, that is not true of a growing number of
countries in Asia and Europe.
In Japan, for example, there are now three million homes connected
directly to the Internet via fiber-optic cables. Compared with typical
United States home bandwidth data rates of 500,000 to 1.5 million bits
per second, Japan has bandwidth of 100 million bits a second for $30 to
$55 a month, according to Osamu Ishida, an engineer at the NTT Network
Innovation Laboratories, an advanced development laboratory in near
Tokyo.
Although a new computing era is clearly dawning, it does not have a
consensus label as was the case with each of the previous eras:
mainframe, mini and personal computing.
So far, the new epoch of computing has been described as grid
computing, on-demand computing, utility computing, the planetary
computer and Web 2.0.
Although the titles are different, they are all efforts to describe an
age that will be a fundamental break from earlier computing
generations.
"Can you blow up the computer machine room and spread it over the
surface of the planet?" Mr. Smarr said. "This is really happening."
Source: New York Times (
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/05/technology/techspecial/
05markoff.html?
ei=5070&en=9e1baff1c5a813bc&ex=1130558400&pagewanted=print )
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