Friday, February 7, 2003

Internet2 Is Too Expensive for Many Liberal-Arts Colleges By FLORENCE OLSEN Internet2, the high-speed education and research network that now links more than 200 research universities, has had little impact so far on education and research at liberal-arts colleges. But the National Science Foundation has taken steps to involve those colleges by expanding its $2-million High-Performance Network Connections grant program. This spring, the NSF is encouraging small colleges to propose programs that use advanced networks for teaching computer-science and other scientific disciplines. However, the NSF's new emphasis on small colleges may not be enough to get them involved in Internet2. Many of them lack the budgets to cover Internet2 connection charges when the two-year NSF grants end. "With budgets being squeezed these days, it's not exactly a good time to try that kind of stuff," says Mark Berman, director for networks and systems at Williams College. At the moment, Internet2 does not appear essential to Williams's educational and research programs, Mr. Berman says. "Although there's very active science here," he says, "it tends toward the theoretical." Another big issue for Williams and other colleges in rural areas is the expense of "backhaul service" to become connected to Abilene, the Internet2 backbone network. Backhaul refers to the hard-to-get and expensive telecommunications service needed to link a college network to the nearest city where the college can get a connection to Internet2. With the cost of backhaul service for Williams College estimated to be about $150,000 a year, connecting to Internet2 seems prohibitive for the time being, Mr. Berman says. On top of the $150,000, the college would also pay annual network-connection charges and membership fees for Internet2. Some liberal-arts colleges have found that sharing backhaul fees within a consortium puts them in a better position to take advantage of the NSF's high-speed connections grants. "We're encouraging collaborative proposals," says Gregory E. Monaco, director of the NSF's computer and information science and engineering programs. This year, for example, Amherst College and Smith College received NSF grants to help them connect to Internet2. Last year, Mount Holyoke College received a similar grant. Each of the colleges is a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which is cooperating on a plan that would provide significant savings on backhaul service to the nearest major telecommunications corridor. Amherst has seven faculty members in biology, computer science, economics, geology, and physics who will be exchanging large image files, analyzing data in remote economics databases, and using spectrometers and other scientific instruments over Internet2's backbone network. In this respect, Amherst is "typical of small colleges that also emphasize research as well as teaching," says Philip Fitz, director of information technology at the college. While much excellent science research can be done without having access to Internet2, the lack of such access "would certainly restrict the fields that those scientists could effectively participate in," Mr. Fitz says. Still, connecting to Internet2 is expensive for liberal-arts colleges, even with the NSF's help. Once Amherst installs new routers, for example, its annual recurring charges for Internet2 will be about $68,500. "I can imagine that some institutions simply aren't going to have the resources to take advantage of it," Mr. Fitz says. In addition to the various connection charges and equipment costs, colleges must also pay for updating their campus networks if they have fallen behind the minimum standards for participating in Internet2. "You really need 100 megabits [100 million bits per second] to the desktop," Mr. Fitz says. Proposals for the next round of NSF connections grants are due by April 21. The agency anticipates awarding $2-million in grants to 15 institutions, each of which will get $70,000 to $200,000. For the first time, a portion of each award may be used to a purchase a small cluster of computers for use in research and education, says Mr. Monaco, of the NSF. Whether a college would benefit from access to the Internet2 backbone "depends on the discipline mix" at a particular institution, says Gregory A. Jackson, vice president and chief information officer at the University of Chicago, which is a member of Internet2. On the one hand, he says, "there was never the presumption that everybody was going to be using this." On the other hand, "the idea that you spend a huge amount for a resource that is used by a few people is what makes a first-tier research university," he says. Or, one might add, a liberal-arts college. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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