VANCOUVER, Wash., Nov. 18 -- The National Transparent Optical Network Consortium -- comprised of Nortel Networks, the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, GST Telecommunications, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, and Sprint Communications -- has activated the second major link of the National Transparent Optical Network (NTON), connecting Portland, Ore., with Seattle.
The consortium described the network as a major portion of the SuperNet, which is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is an integral part of the US government's Next Generation Internet (NGI) project. With the NGI, the government plans to connect a series of regional networks to provide a national testbed for the development of future high-speed, broadband applications. In addition to the Portland-Seattle link, the NTON currently connects Los Angeles with San Francisco via a 10-Gb/s (OC-192) SONET System. The network's two final links, which are to be activated in the first half of 2000, will connect San Diego to Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. to San Francisco.