Indiana University Northwest ChancellorBruce W. Bergland and IndianaUniversity Vice President for InformationTechnology, Michael McRobbie recently announced a major upgrade inInternet connectivity for IU Northwest. Increased capacity and newer equipmentwill substantially improve performance and support more advanced networkservices including video applications.

"The State Legislature recognizes the importance of information technologyto higher education in the State. Recently, they provided IU with partof the funding needed to acquire and implement essential tools and serviceson all campuses in accordance with the University's Information TechnologyStrategic Plan,"said Chancellor Bergland. "This is great news for IU Northwest. One ofthe areas of focus in our SharedVision plan is creating a campus climate that accelerates academicexcellence in learning, discovery, creativity and engagement. These significantenhancements to our networking infrastructure and Internet capacity fromthe funds will greatly benefit our students, as well as the rest of thecampus community.”

IU Northwest is connected to the Internet through IUNet - the networkthat connects all IU campuses. It's present connection is a low speed connection,called a T1 circuit, capable of transmitting data at only 1.5 Million bitsper second (Mbits) - roughly 30 times the speed of a household modem connection.The new connection is scheduled 
to be available later this year and will increase the speed of thisconnection by 30 times to what is called a DS3 circuit, capable of transferring45 Mbits of data - nearly 1,000 times the speed of a household modem. 

This major upgrade will provide enough capacity to meet the currentdata networking demand from the campus to the commercial Internet. It willalso support more advanced video services, and is of a high enough speedto allow the IU Northwest campus community to participate in Internet2.Eventually this connection will carry converged voice, data, and videoservices for the campus.

"Students, faculty and staff at IU Northwest will experience greatlyimproved performance with user connections and data transfers as a resultof this upgrade," said Vice President McRobbie. "In addition, IU Northwestfaculty and researchers will be connected to Internet2, the world's mostadvanced high speed research and education network, which is managed andoperated by Indiana University. The network provides connections to othersimilar networks world-wide."

The expansion of IU's statewide IUNet to a minimum of DS3-level connectionswill allow it to carry digital video connections between all the campusesand to other networks to which it is connected. Digital video will playan important role in instruction and research on all campuses of the University.