VBNS TURNS UP ULTRA HIGH-SPEED WEST COAST CONNECTION FOR RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
RESTON, Va., February 18, 1999 --
MCI WorldCom today announced that it has enhanced capacity for
research and academic users of its NSF-sponsored vBNS (Very High
Performance Backbone Network Service) with the installation of an OC-48
link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. vBNS is a leading network
support service for NGI (Next Generation Internet) and Internet2.
Members of the CalREN-2 university research and education network,
including California Institute of Technology, California State
University, Stanford University, University of California, and
University of Southern California, will be among the first to explore
applications using the highest IP transmission speeds available today
for accelerated, end-to-end high performance applications.
Launched in April 1995, the vBNS is the product of a five-year
cooperative agreement between MCI WorldCom and the National Science
Foundation (NSF) to provide a high bandwidth network for research
applications. vBNS has built its reputation across Internet, research
and academic communities on the features and performance of its
network. With four years of experience, led by award-winning engineers,
vBNS continues to set the pace for next generation Internetworking.
Under its agreement with NSF, MCI WorldCom is pushing the edges of
IP performance and functionality in support of the more than 81
education and research organizations and four supercomputer centers,
sponsored by the National Science Foundation, that currently rely on
vBNS to meet their research needs, including transmission of massive
amounts of data at extremely high rates.
"This is an important milestone in support of next generation
Internetworking," said Vint Cerf, MCI WorldCom senior vice
president of Internet Architecture and Technology. "vBNS supports
the exploration of advanced applications by the research and education
community, some of which may one day become commonplace on the public
Internet. This upgrade allows experimentation with applications
involving multicast, IP version 6, and Quality of Service classes at
the high speeds supportable with 2.5 gigabit/second OC-48
trunking."
MCI WorldCom has deployed Juniper Networks M40 routers to power the
OC-48 trunks and to allow use of next generation MPLS (Multi Protocol
Label Switching) technology in place of its current ATM (Asynchronous
Transfer Mode) layer 2 architecture. The M40 Internet backbone router
operates at wire rate performance at OC-48 speeds, ensuring that vBNS
can scale to meet the unusual demands of the R&E community. MCI
WorldCom plans to continue to migrate backbone segments of vBNS
throughout 1999 to create a pure IP over SONET infrastructure.
"We are very pleased to see this increased capacity in the vBNS
backbone," said David Wasley, Project Director for the Corporation
for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC). "Members
of our CalREN-2 network will now be able to fully utilize their high
speed connections to the vBNS. The new high performance applications we
are developing will demonstrate the importance of this capability as
part of the Internet2 work in which we are engaged."
MCI WorldCom is publicly displaying the capabilities of the new vBNS
network capability with continuous network tests and results at
http://www.vbns.net/OC48/oc48map.htm
MCI WorldCom is a global communications company with revenue of more
than $30 billion and established operations in over 65 countries
encompassing the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. MCI
WorldCom is a premier provider of facilities-based and fully integrated
local, long distance, international and Internet services. MCI
WorldCom's global networks, including its state-of-the-art
pan-European network and transoceanic cable systems, provide end-to-end
high-capacity connectivity to more than 38,000 buildings worldwide. MCI
WorldCom is traded on NASDAQ under WCOM. For more information on MCI
WorldCom, visit the World Wide Web at
www.wcom.com
.
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EDITOR'S NOTE:
Vint Cerf will lead an interactive audio briefing on this topic today
at 12:00 noon (Eastern)/9:00 a.m. (Pacific). Reporters wishing to
participate may call toll free: 888-790-1779 or toll: 712-271-0016,
password: MCI WorldCom. An audio replay will be available for 48 hours
at 800-337-8650.
