Campus Computing News

By Dr. Maurice Leatherbury, Senior Director of Academic Computing

UNT to Join North Texas Internet 2 GigaPOP

The University will soon be connecting to Internet 2 through a fledgling "gigaPOP" (gigabit Point of Presence) that is being established under the auspices of the Alliance of Higher Education. Initially, the membership of the gigaPOP will be UNT, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Christian University, and the UT Southwestern Medical School. Baylor University in Waco may join within a year, and Southern Methodist University may also join when its current NSF Connections Grant expires. Our plans at this time are to connect to both Internet 2 and "Internet 1" (the current commodity Internet) via a 45 Mbps line: the gigaPOP will be connecting to the Internet 2 Abilene network over a 155Mbps line. The gigaPOP organizational structure is being established now, so it will probably be at least four months before any connections will actually be made to Internet 2.*

UNT System Center at Dallas Technology Plans

In January 2000, UNT will be opening the recently-authorized System Center at Dallas near the intersection of I20 and Hampton Road in southern Dallas. A group of information technology managers on the Denton campus has been making plans for equipping the new Center, which promises to offer the same high level of technology that we enjoy on the main campus.

The Center will have a general access computer lab, two computer classrooms with machines for each student, a Computing Science lab, permanent computer workstation setups in each classroom, and a library with computers for serving the needs of students for access to the extensive electronic information resources of the Library on the main campus. All classrooms will have the full complement of multimedia equipment that is found in recently-equipped classrooms here in Denton. There will also be a videoconferencing classroom at the Center, connected to the UNT videoconferencing network. Finally, the needs of the faculty and staff at the Center haven't been neglected: all personnel will have access to a computer and printers.

* Since UNT has been working to join Internet 2 since 1998, four or five months will fly by in no time.