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Brazil and United States Collaborate on Advanced Internet Technologies

I2-NEWS

05.24.2000

Washington, DC, May 24, 2000 - The Rede Nacional de Pesquisa (RNP) and Internet2, a consortium led by over 170 US universities working to accelerate the development of the Internet, have signed an agreement to collaborate on the development and deployment of advanced Internet technologies and applications between US and Brazilian research and education communities.

"In 1997, RNP began an initiative to accelerate the development of the Internet in Brazil. Since then, it has implemented 14 high performance metropolitan networks, involving more than 70 institutions, anticipating the availableness of these services nationwide. RNP is now building a Brazilian high performance backbone which will allow our education and research institutions to collaborate with the Internet2 project," said José Luiz Ribeiro Filho, project manager of RNP.

"We look forward to working with RNP to advance international networking," said Douglas Van Houweling, President and CEO of Internet2. "Collaboration among our respective member institutions will not only enable research and education between our two countries, but will also help expand the capabilities of the global commercial Internet."

As part of the agreement, RNP and Internet2 will connect their respective networks. RNP is developing RNP2, a high-performance national network in Brazil to interconnect state and metropolitan networks. In the US, Internet2 members use the very high performance Backbone Network Service provided under cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation and MCI WorldCom and Abilene, the high-performance network developed by Internet2 members in cooperation with Qwest Communications, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and Indiana University.

"We are now looking at promoting collaborative work between national and US institutions that are involved in RNP2 and Internet2 projects respectively to join expertise and foster the development of new technologies for advanced applications in both countries," stated Jose Luiz Ribeiro Filho.