A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

                                   THE WHITE HOUSE                            Office of the Press Secretary       ________________________________________________________________________  For Immediate Release                                       May 20, 1997

VICE PRESIDENT GORE ANNOUNCES NEW CONNECTIONS TO HIGH-SPEED NETWORK

Establishes foundation for "Next Generation Internet"

Vice President Gore today (5/20) announced that the National Science Foundation is awarding $12.3 million in grants to 35 research institutions across the United States to allow them to connect to the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) -- a network that will soon be fast enough to transmit all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica in under a second. These grants will bring the total number of research institutions connected to vBNS to 64.

"Today's announcement is part of a strategy that will allow researchers to push forward the frontiers of science in ways that we can only dream about," said the Vice President. "Scientists will be able to use remote supercomputers, collaborate effectively with other scientists around the country, and easily access huge quantities of data. This will lead to advances in our ability to predict the weather, find cures for genetic diseases, and accurately model the health of our environment."

The NSF grants help set the foundation for the Administration,s Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, a $100 million per year, 3-year project that will:

Connect more than 100 research institutions at speeds that are 100 - 1,000 times faster than today's Internet;
Invest in research and development for new networking technologies, such as the ability to handle real-time, multimedia traffic; and
Demonstrate new applications in areas such as distance education, telemedicine, national security, and "collaboratories" (laboratories without walls).

Private sector companies will commercialize the new technologies that are developed as part of the NGI initiative -- generating economic growth, new jobs, and new services for the tens of millions of Internet users.

"Previous government investments in research networks, such as the ARPANET and the NSFNET, have produced huge payoffs for our economy and our society," said the Vice President. "The Internet boom has generated $200 billion in economic value for new and existing firms, and hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs. It is also allowing us to connect all of our children to the same universe of knowledge. The Next Generation Internet initiative is a critical investment in our future -- and will serve as a catalyst for the new networks and networked applications of the 21st century."

The NGI initiative is a partnership between industry, academia, and government agencies (the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, NASA, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology). It has been endorsed by industry leaders at companies such as MCI, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Cisco, General Electric, Teledesic, Novell, Ipsilon, Lucent Technologies, and Fore Systems.

More information about the NGI is available at http://www.ngi.gov.

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