By the end of May, Israel will be connecting to Internet 2 in Europe,
announced Israel’s science minister Silvan Shalom at the Internet 2
conference held last week in Tel Aviv.
At the beginning of June, Israel will also be connecting to the US Internet 2.
Golden Lines will be handling the European connection using an
underwater cable of bandwidth 34 mbps. Gilat is in charge of the
connection to the U.S., which will be implemented via satellite using a bandwidth of 45
mbps.
Minister Shalom stated that the government is treating the connection to
Internet 2 as a national project for setting up R&D foundations. The
government has allocated funds of $40 million for the coming four years,
at a rate of $10 million per year.
“Internet 2 will help to bridge the
physical distance between Israel and the industrial and research centers
of Europe and the States,” said Shalom.
The science minister and those in academic circles do not agree on the
use that will be made of the network. The academics regard Internet 2
as solely for academic usage, whereas Shalom would like to see it in use
in the private sector as well.
Shalom said his successor will have
to make that decision since Israel is going to the polls next week, and
if his party, Likud, is successful, he hopes to be given a more senior
post in the new government.
U.S. vice president Al Gore, sent his best wishes to the participants of
the conference.
“I am glad to see,” wrote Gore “that American and
Israeli scientists are collaborating to ensure the progress of the
information network which will be so vital in the 21st century.”
At the conference, Tom DeFanti of Illinois University, Chicago, spoke of
the uses of Internet 2, for example, for remote studies or for medical
purposes. He quoted results of research recently carried out in American
colleges where they have begun working with Internet 2.
It seems that in
these initial stages only technicians familiar with the network
are using it. The applications are specifically for one use, are
difficult to operate and do not interact with each other, nor with other
colleges’ systems.
In addition, the colleges do not update their
objectives speedily enough. Generic network applications as well as
suitable interfaces and workstations are necessary for the development of the network, stated DeFanti.
