This has become an instant gratification society. We've become accustomed to fast food, fast cars, and fast access to information. Is online education too slow? Not anymore...at least in terms of Internet connections. The popular Internet2 academic-computing consortium, which numerous colleges and universities rely on to provide access to research and networking, has unveiled plans for a super-speed "national academic fiber-optic network", tentatively titled "Newnet." The consortium hopes to make it available within 18 months.

The new network would replace Internet2's Abilene high-speed network, upon which many colleges depend for both research and day-to-day networking needs. And it would provide researchers with massive amounts of extra bandwidth at a moment's notice.

Douglas E. Van Houweling, president of Internet2, said in a talk during the organization's spring meeting here that the new network initially would carry data on 10 different wavelengths of light, each of which could handle 10 gigabits of data per second -- or the total capacity of Abilene -- at a time.

Zoom zoom, indeed.

(Photo Source: Kay's Computing)