It took a while, but many researchers in higher education, government and industry finally outgrew the Internet.

And even some of the rest of us, who tap our fingers impatiently while we wait for a particularly large attachment to exit our outboxes, are eager for more speed — and any other improvements computer scientists and technicians can dream up.

Enter Internet2, a consortium of researchers and their institutions, who are building a bigger, faster, more flexible cyberspace that will one day open a new universe for us all. About 200 U.S. groups are members of the consortium. Tennessee Tech is a sponsored participant, teaming up with formal consortium member Vanderbilt University to facilitate a number of research projects, including a one establishing a regional health information organization — or RHIO — in Tennessee.

"Internet2 is making more things possible online," says Doug Talbert, interim chairperson of Computer Science and principle investigator, along with colleague Mike Rogers, of the RHIO work with Vanderbilt (see right).

The possibilities are nearly endless. TTU faculty have proposed a wide-ranging array of projects that take advantage of Internet2's current capabilities. Talbert and Rogers in Computer Science are working in medical informatics. In Electrical and Computer Engineering, Xubin He is researching wide-area network storage, while Kwon-Lon Ting in Mechanical Engineering is working in real-time monitoring and control from a distance with the University of Kentucky. Bruce Greene of Agriculture and Bob Clougherty of the Institute for Technological Scholarship are collaborating with Arkansas State on improving the teaching of animal science through the transport of large data files. And Peter Li of Earth Sciences is working on an interactive, online GIS mapping service.

That kind of data sharing and collaboration are at the heart of Internet2, whose key components are better bandwidth and latency. Bandwidth determines how much data can be transmitted. Latency determines the time it takes to transmit. On our campus, regular Internet traffic transmits at 10 megabits a second. With a National Science Foundation grant of $200,000, we've been able to open a line between our campus and Vanderbilt that transmits at 45 megabits a second.

"The combination of low latency and high bandwidth opens up new applications," says Talbert. "The Water Center, for instance, was wanting to work with satellite data from NASA, which was physically impossible without Internet2, because satellite files are so huge. One of the goals is to improve collaboration — and that collaboration can be digital. It's facilitating remote instrumentation; if a researcher here wants to send data to an electron microscope at another location, Internet2 can accommodate the packet sizes and times."

The beauty of Internet2 is that it's not just about speed and size. It's about the Internet of tomorrow, because innovations are part of the consortium's mission. Our faculty, and even our students, are contributing to the vitality of the network by investigating how to improve it. One Computer Science student, Rob Dye, is using his senior capstone project to explore a mixed-mode form of transport combining the Internet with its new improved version.

"Formal members of I2 have to contribute to the community by providing service to other members and participants," says Talbert. "We want to see what we can contribute. We don't want to be just a user, but a provider."

Talbert and other faculty and researchers are planning an event showcasing the capabilities of Internet2 for later in the year. Watch the Tech Times for more details — and more news about how TTU is involved with Internet2.