A new fiber-optic line connecting UB's campuses and research facilities will dramatically improve Internet service for students and researchers alike, experts say.
By the end of 2005, workers will lay 14 miles of fiber-optic cable connecting North Campus, South Campus and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus near the center of the city.
According to UB officials, the $800,000 project will form a critical link to the medical campus, home of UB's emerging Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
"In simplest terms, it's a big pipe that we can put a lot of information in," said Mark Deuell, director of operational support services for the Department of Computing Information and Techonology. "We will be able to transmit data that now takes hours in a matter of minutes."
The link will replace an aging system that is in need of an upgrade, particularly for the university's growing research interests, officials said.
"There are several legs to the project," said E. Bruce Pitman, associate dean for research and sponsored programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. "The first is replacing an existing system that is ten years old and connecting researchers to the computing resources sitting on North Campus."
Connection speed will be over 600 times faster with the new link. The capacity of the line will increase to one gigabit from 1.5 megabits.
Pitman said the enhanced connection will not only connect researchers to on-campus resources, but will make it easier for them to connect with colleagues at different universities through a medium called Internet 2.
"What is new is the connectivity downtown ... not only to the at-large Internet, the commodity Internet we know, but to Internet 2, another Internet that links universities and research facilities all around the world," he said.
Deuell explained how the connection to Internet 2 would aid UB researchers.
"For example, researchers at (Hauptman-Woodward) transfer files that are multiple gigabits with researchers at Columbia University and at the University of Toronto," he said. "Right now the pipe is smaller than what's in your dorm room. What we have with the new fiber optic line is a thousand-fold expansion in speed to transmit this huge amount of data."
However, most students will not see direct benefits from the project, Deuell said. The most visible improvements will occur for researchers in specific fields, such as bioinformatics, structural biology or some of the computer science fields.
"The impetus for the project were the huge datasets researchers were needing to process," said Pitman. "Those students and researchers will find their capabilities expanded measurably."
Deuell did say the development could help all students in the long run by changing the way Internet service is handled.
In addition, he said the new fiber optic line is a sound financial investment for the university.
"The new line will replace two lines that we currently lease from Verizon - the one that runs from the current Bioinformatics center at 1.5 megabits, and the one we lease from Adelphia, connecting the two campuses," he said.
Deuell said that because the old lines cost $100,000 per year to lease, the new line would pay for itself within three years when the benefits of the expanded connection speed are considered.
Deuell also said the fiber-optic cable would create a better, faster, more expandable connection to the regional router, located in Main Place Tower in downtown Buffalo.
The project also helps the region by making Western New York more appealing to biotechnology companies looking to locate here, Duell said.
"It's not a deal-breaker," said Deuell. "But if a biotechnology company were to look at the Buffalo area, they would see where the resources are and build in that area, so yes, this could foster future growth."
