IU, Purdue bringing high-speed cables to Indiana colleges

IU and Purdue University might be opponents on the football field, but in the field of information technology, the two universities are pairing up to bring high-speed computing to public colleges across the state of Indiana.\nGov. Mitch Daniels announced that the state has awarded a multi-million dollar grant to IU and Purdue for the I-Light2 project to expand inter-collegiate network connectivity to include all state colleges and universities. The statement came last week at the Techpoint's Indiana Technology Summit in Indianapolis.\nI-Light2 is a continuation of the original I-Light project that connected IU, Purdue and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and now opens a high-speed fiber optic computing infostructure that will make it easy for Indiana's higher education community to share research and access databases.\n"I have agreed to 'light,' or turn on the fiber connections linking colleges and universities in Indiana because I believe that creating this super high-speed network will lead to greater advancements for our institutions of higher learning," Daniels said in a statement. "I-Light2 will be preserved for the exclusive use of higher education. State government will not become a competitor to private sector companies which provide broadband Internet connections to Hoosiers."\nLeading the original project, IU and Purdue will now head the expansion project and oversee the completion of an infostructure to cover Indiana's state universities. \n"Our assignment is to continue expanding the I-Light infrastructure to all of Indiana higher education, and then also manage and operate the resulting network," said Mark Bruhn, associate vice president for IU telecommunications. "Discussions will now begin to determine who will do what, but it's likely, given our strengths, that IU will do the majority of the remaining network engineering and will probably host the network operations center for the new broader network, as we do those things now for a variety of other networks."\nThough the initial project is a large one, it makes sense for IU and Purdue to lead other institutions through the process, said Steve Tally, manager of editorial services for the vice president of information technology's office at Purdue. \n"IU and Purdue are national leaders in this -- we have worked closely together for the past couple of years," he said. "This will bring other universities into the collaboration and develop a strong bond between Indiana's higher education system." \nThe bond will increase Indiana's ability to continue educational research among its universities by permitting an easier outlet for sharing scientific information for educational purposes. \n"This super-fast network will enable IU to maintain its position as a national leader in high-speed networking and will greatly assist us in seeking additional federal grant and contract support for our research efforts," IU Vice President for Research and Information Technology Michael McRobbie said in a press release. "The issue of broadband access in Indiana more generally is on such a scale that it can only realistically be addressed by the private sector." \nAlthough an exact starting date and estimated completion time is still unknown, the effects of the I-Light2 project are already calculated in the minds of those involved. \n"This project through the collaboration of IU and Purdue will only strengthen the possibilities of what the two collaborating as one can accomplish -- it will break down boundaries," Tally said.