Level 3 Communications and Internet2, a combination of more than 200 U.S. universities, have formed a partnership to deploy a new nationwide 100 Gigabit per second network to support the service and application demands of the academic and research community. The new network will go live in 2007.

The new network will initially have 10 times the capacity of the existing Internet 2 Abilene backbone network, but also will be scaleable to add capacity as requirements change. Capacity will be dedicated to production IP capabilities, to replace the Abilene network. Level 3 will provide multiple 10 Gbps wavelengths, along with high-speed IP transit and collocation services. Internet2 users will also have access to private line, metro and long-haul dark fiber services, under the agreement.

"We are really happy to partner with Internet2," said Level 3 CTO Jack Waters. "We have been committed to research and education community for years. This is one of the premiere new networks to be built -- it's a big step up from the previous network. It's also taking that next step of linking the packet world and optical world which is something that really hasn’t been done before, especially at this scale."

“This new, flexible network created by the Internet2 community and Level 3 will enable the research and education community to unlock new frontiers to advance discovery, research and collaboration, facilitating the development of true next-generation Internet technologies,” said Dr. Larry Faulkner, Internet2 Board of Trustees chairman, in a prepared statement. “In doing so, Internet2 is expanding upon its long legacy of providing reliable and cutting-edge networking to advance the missions of its members and the broader research and education community.”

One key aspect of the new network will be flexibility, enabling services to be dynamically reconfigured for short or long-term use to offer bandwidth as needed. Greater amounts of bandwidth can be set up through advanced network scheduling or on-demand.

Level 3 isn't announcing the volume of the deal or the revenue to be produced, but Waters does see additional benefits to his company of working on a cutting-edge network project.

"I think it means we get to see some of the advancements in network technology that could and should be useful to commercial world and to Level 3," he said. "We will be a lot closer to the experiements that occur. We have a pretty state-of-the-art network Internet2 will test our capabilities and push us to do better."