NSFNET Partners Make Major Announcements at National NET '90

By Ken Horning
Merit/NSFNET

On Thursday, March 15, the NSFNET partnership held a morning news conference at National Net '90 in Washington, D.C.

At that time announcements were made regarding a demonstration of T3 technology that was in operation via a link between Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Washington, D.C., and an international link that was about to be established between the United States and Switzerland.

The international connection

A ceremonial opening of the international link used a 4' x 8' oval map of the world. Faintly blinking lights in the U.S. and Europe were connected by a strobe light pulsating in an optilume fiber-optic cable from Cornell to Switzerland.

Stephen Wolff, National Science Foundation, Division Director, Division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure and Michael M. Connors, IBM, Director of Computing Systems for IBM Research initiated the ceremonial connection by plugging cable into socket and causing the map lights in the U.S. and Europe to brighten and blink more rapidly.

National press represented

The conference proved to be of keen interest to the national media and was attended by representatives of 13 publications or stations including: Gillette News Bureau; Wall Street Journal; Washington Times; InfoWorld; Communications Week; Publishers Weekly; Network World; Electronic News; New Scientist; Academic Computing; Washington Technology; Science Trends; and News Byte.

Additional speakers

In addition to Wolff and Connors, featured speakers at the event included Douglas E. Van Houweling, Merit Computer Network, Chairman of the Board and Vice-Provost for Information Technology, University of Michigan; Lawrence J. Bouman, MCI, Senior Vice President of MCI Telecommunications; and James Kenworthy, State of Michigan, Manager, Research and Technology Programs, Michigan Strategic Fund.

Taken from The Link Letter, Vol. 3 No. 1, April 1990.