The US National Science Foundation is putting up $50m for the project to add an expressway to the Internet, connecting favored research centers, universities, public schools, libraries and museums to the Very High Speed Backbone Network System that currently links just five of the Science Foundation’s Supercomputer Centers and is set up and operated by MCI Communications Corp. It is currently being upgraded to 622Mbps from 155Mbps and 13 colleges and universities will be the first to go on, with an eventual target of about 100. MCI told the San Jose Mercury News that the cost of all the switches and other equipment will be many times the $50m from the Foundation. Universities are expected to pay about five times what they currently spend on annual connection costs on Internet usage for the new line.
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