NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORKING CONSORTIUM SELECTS LEVEL 3
AND QWEST TO PROVIDE NETWORK SERVICES
Selections close the first round of the The Quilt's Commodity Internet
Services project
Pittsburgh, PA--August 21, 2002--The Quilt, a coalition of leading
regional research and education networking organizations across the
United States, today announced that Level 3 Communications and Qwest
Communications have been selected as authorized national providers of
Internet services for its Participants. The Quilt is a coalition of 17
regional networking organizations dedicated to providing advanced
networking services to the research and education communities.
Level 3 and Qwest were selected from a dozen proposals based on their
ability to collaboratively and strategically provide high-performance
nationwide network services to some of the nation's most sophisticated
regional, metropolitan, and campus networks. Collectively, participants
in The Quilt currently use over 4.5 gigabits per second of commodity
Internet capacity today, and expect this use to reach over 8 gigabits
per second by the end of next year.
"We are extremely pleased to be working with Level 3 and Qwest to meet
the collective technical requirements and cumulative capacity needs of
participants in The Quilt," said Gwendolyn Huntoon, executive director
of The Quilt. "We expect this collaboration to continue the well-defined
track record of success for partnerships between companies and the
leading-edge Internet community The Quilt represents."
"Level 3 is committed to helping The Quilt further extend the deployment
of advanced networking for the research and education communities it
serves," said Jack Waters, CTO for Level 3. "Collaborating with research
and education organizations like The Quilt is a key focus at Level 3. We
believe that our network provides the unique performance capabilities
and scalable interconnection capacity to other IP backbones necessary to
help The Quilt reach its goals."
"Qwest is pleased that its broadband network will contribute to the
future of cutting-edge research and communication," said Cliff Holtz,
executive vice president, Qwest Business Markets. "By expanding
available Internet-access options, this new program broadens the
resources available to the always-vital research community, an important
customer group for Qwest."
Membership in The Quilt includes the Corporation for Education Network
Initiatives in California (CENIC), EDUCAUSE, the Front Range Gigapop
(FRGP), the Great Plains Network (GPN), the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads
(MAX), Merit Networks, the Metropolitan Research and Education Network
(MREN), Net.Work.Virginia, the North Carolina GigaPoP, Northern Lights,
the Northern Crossroads (NoX), NYSERNet, the Oregon GigaPoP, OARnet, the
Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), the Pittsburgh GigaPoP, the Southern
Crossroads (SoX), Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA)
and the Texas GigaPoP.
The selection closed the first round of The Quilt's Commodity Internet
Services Project. Progress is already underway for a second round of the
project. For more information, see:
http://www.thequilt.net/proj-cis/
About The Quilt(tm)
The Quilt gathers over seventeen leading research and education
networking organizations in the United States to promote consistent,
reliable, interoperable, and efficient advanced networking services that
extend to the broadest possible community; and to represent common
interests in the development and delivery of advanced network services.
Participants in The Quilt provide network service for over 150 Internet2
universities and thousands of other educational institutions. The
University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), a
university-led research and development consortium, provides
organizational support for The Quilt.
For more information, see: http://www.thequilt.net/
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Contacts:
Media
Greg Wood, Internet2
+1-202-331-5360
ghwood@internet2.edu
Technical
Gwendolyn Huntoon, The Quilt
+1-412-268-4960
huntoon@thequilt.net
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