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May 10, 1999
Web posted at: 2:59 p.m. EDT (1859 GMT)

by David Essex

(IDG) -- The pipeline for the faster, more reliable Internet successor is already being laid, and you can get a peek at the future this month at the

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NetWorld + Interop trade show.

One demo at the Las Vegas show will offer a look at live distance-learning sessions originating in Washington, D.C. The vendor, IXC Communications, will show off its next-generation Internet backbone, Gemini2000.

The first leg of the pipeline came online last December, and was one of the first networks to participate in Internet2, a national initiative to build a less-congested information superhighway for universities, research institutions, government agencies, and corporations. A consortium of New York-based companies and institutions--including Eastman Kodak, Cornell University, and Columbia University--is already using Gemini2000 for performance-sensitive applications.

It is suited for applications like streaming video, distance learning, and telemedicine says Larry Helft, president of Applied Theory, a New York Internet services company and partner of IXC. "One of the nice things about having universities involved is that they are technically prepared to really make use of this," Helft says.

Internet2's Wide Benefits

A new class of companies that includes IXC and competitors Level 3, Qwest, and Williams Communications, sells high-speed network connections to long-distance carriers, Internet service providers, and corporations. Internet2 is restricted to certain applications, and other high-speed links won't initially be sold directly to consumers. But home users will nonetheless see better Net performance, as "commodity" traffic moves to the new networks, according to Jim Clishem, IXC vice president.

"It opens up a whole range of applications that weren't available before," Clishem says. The original, decades-old Internet can't guarantee delivery of data packets within a certain period of time, partly because it often routes data through far-flung parts of the network. Gemini2000, which is not restricted to Internet2 users, will route data within eight U.S. regions surrounding major metropolitan "core sites." Clishem says the last four regions will go online between May and August.

Meanwhile, the Qwest-based Internet2 network called Abilene powered up in February, and Canada is building a similar network, says Shelley Grandy, a representative of Nortel, which makes fiber-optic hardware for the new networks. Most of the major U.S. and international telephone carriers have also upgraded their networks to better handle existing Internet traffic, Grandy adds.