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Education Network News

29 Universities Seek High-Speed Networks 68

Posted by Soulskill from the streaming-lectures-versus-movie-torrents dept.
An anonymous reader sends this quote from USA Today: "The University of Missouri announced Wednesday it is joining an effort by some of the country's top colleges to build 'ultra' high-speed data networks in their local communities. The project is known as Gig.U: The University Community Next Generation Innovation Project. The 29 participating schools include Arizona State, Duke, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Florida and Wake Forest University. The Aspen Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit, initiated the effort. The schools and their local partners will solicit proposals from telecommunications companies in their area. They hope to quickly build high-speed broadband networks in communities with low unemployment and heavy demand for such services."
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29 Universities Seek High-Speed Networks More

29 Universities Seek High-Speed Networks

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  • I have a better idea. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by scottbomb ( 1290580 ) on Saturday July 30, 2011 @05:53PM (#36935402) Journal

    Lower your damn tuition.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      As long as people pay for it, why bother? There are lower cost options available that give out the same paper. If you really want a special name on top, you should pay for it.

      Either way this is a good initiative I think as I live in an area with a couple of Universities and Colleges. This won't only help the colleges but also the surrounding living areas and businesses and in return attract more people that have kids and need education.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Americium ( 1343605 )

        Because over $100 billion in Federal student loans are given out each year for those tuitions, and it's only going up. So the taxpayer is on the hook for those government guaranteed loans, and it's the reason why Universities can keep increasing tuition.

        I also don't see why you would need 1Gbit, 15mbit streams 1080p already. I really don't need anything faster and I can't think of anything that would.

        • I really don't need anything faster and I can't think of anything that would.

          PORN! Lots and lots of porn. Multiple screens.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Federal student loans are the biggest reason for extremely high tuition rates. The universities gain near perfect price discrimination by looking over an applicant's financials and charging them the most they can possibly afford. If rates were low, then students might actually benefit by getting an education for less than they were willing to pay. By keeping rates high the university makes every student pay the maximum of what they are willing and lets the federal government pay the remainder for even mo

        • Re:I have a better idea. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Saturday July 30, 2011 @10:43PM (#36936622)

          Because the average Internet connection in the US (and most cities including this one) is 3Mbps, not 15. Also to spur innovation and economy (as online business is booming, except in the US where it's less time consuming to DRIVE in my government sponsored car to RedBox than streaming it).

          Loans get payed back with interest, no worries about a mere 100B when at least 10x that amount gets spent yearly on unnecessary military campaigns and another identical amount trying to keep old people alive that can't afford a private insurance as there is no public health care option.

          • That's just one fed student loan program, 65% of students have loans. And 100B per year is about the cost of both wars. Obama just reduced the time til the loans go into default to 15 years, so not only will students be bankrupted by the high tuition rates, the taxpayers will also lose money.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by guruevi ( 827432 )

              For the 2010 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of spending on "overseas contingency operations" $663.8 billion. Overall the budget has over 1.1 trillion dollars set aside for direct military spending not to talk about the indirect costs and during the republican rule this was 1.6 trillion dollars.

              The US spends roughly 5% of GDP, 50% of tax revenue on military spending, roughly 6x the amount that a militaristic country like China spends. Off course that is what the tea baggers want:

              • Yea I know and as I stated before both wars are costing around $100 billion per year. The whole point of taxes is for the military, that's why we have an income tax. I thought tea party activists were for lowering military spending but having it account for a larger percentage of government spending.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bengie ( 1121981 )

              " And 100B per year is about the cost of both wars"

              The one war alone cost over 3 trillion. That's 30 years at 100B/year. Last I checked, it started after 9/11/2001, not back in the 1980's

              Even if they were the same, guess which one has a return on investment?

              Six years ago, back when I was in college, my poli-sci teacher showed us an interesting thing. He added up the average cost for insurance people in the USA pay, and he added up the average cost of college. The amount of money we spent on the war(9/11) in

              • I don't know where you got 3 trillion but both wars combined have so far cost just over 1 trillion, for the whole 10 years we have been there. So just one Fed student loan program costs the same, nevermind free tuition for all or healthcare. Just medicare was over $600 billion in 2008, that's 6 times both wars. Apparently your poli science teacher didn't understand math at all.
          • All of new england and most of the east coast has 15 available if they want it, there's just no need or want for it. I live in central Maine and it's available here. 3mbit already streams dvd quality anyway. When the cost per household for the midwest is over $200,000 it's cheaper to build a new house than to wire them up. 4G will blanket most of the US soon enough, so why waste the money.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by guruevi ( 827432 )

              You seriously have no idea about the technical aspects of this do you. YOU may not see a need or want for it as you only seem to need Fox News and affiliated blogging sites but I see a serious need beyond my current capacity.

              I am CONTINUOUSLY using over 5Mbps in streaming services and downloads already and I regularly fill my 10Mbps cap and then I don't even have kids that use computers yet. I pay over $150 for this privilege, I can upgrade to a 15Mbps burst for another $50 but that is it before I need to g

              • Well maybe if the state you are in allowed Time Warner to lay down some copper and fiber you too would be getting 15mbit for less than $40/month.

        • I can think of many uses that need high speed networking. And most of them are for businesses that might be enticed into a local economy. And of course there's the stated intention of research. So part of these projects is examining what people can come up with in a community if they're given high-speed networking. Sometimes you have to think outside the basement.

    • I have an even better idea. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How about we figure out how to start making things again, instead of being a purely information and service society and outsourcing to China for our hard goods? What good is a high speed wire if there is no one who has an income to purchase it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        We know how to make them now, it is just cheaper to outsource the low-skill labor necessary. No, people as a whole will not pay the major extra costs associated with "Made in America" for mass produced goods.

        Fantasize all you want about bringing mass manufacturing back to the United States, but it is gone for good. It is time to face reality. The future of America is in creativity and brains, not low-skilled labor.

        If you can do your job with a pair of headphones on, listening to music and not thinking about

        • "bringing mass manufacturing back to the United States, but it is gone for good."

          Do you study history AT ALL? Do you see the trend in the dollar's value? Do I need to continue?

          Better yet, why not visit an American car dealership and examine the merchandise.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by chill ( 34294 )

            The American automotive industry is slowly but inexorably moving towards increased automation through robotics. The number of human workers per automobile has done nothing but decline in recent decades.

            I study history quite a bit. Feel free to look at the British Pound for a good example of where the US Dollar is likely to head.

            The Dollar will not sink low enough to make US labor competitive for mass market goods. Even in a scenario of hyper-inflation, it won't happen. Look at how Germany ended up after the

          • I'm sorry. This opportunity doesn't come along very often, so I need to exploit it now.

            The current front-page article here on /. titled "Foxconn To Employ 1 Million Robots [slashdot.org]" screams LISTEN TO CHILL on this thread. :-)

      • We DO make billions of dollars of hard goods. We DON'T need vast amounts of unskilled laborers to do that.

        The idea that most of any population should have good jobs is historically absurd. Americans have been so conditioned by the Bubble Economy they forget bubbles burst and take years to be replaced with different bubbles.

        I spent the good times preparing for the inevitable bad times. This isn't the last Recession or Depression, so don't dare take security for granted even after things improve.

        • The idea that most of any population should have good jobs is historically absurd

          There are those who would say that the plan is to reduce the population considerably... And then the above goal becomes achievable.

    • Creating more prosperity and a bigger tax base WILL lower the tuition.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        the teabagger panacea... one has nothing to do with the other, btw. go lick my laffer-curve.
    • Lower tuition is a great idea. But how do you manage that when, for the last thirty years, enrollments have increased and funding has dropped from state, federal, and private sources? Higher enrollment isn't the only expense, though it's a big one because it tends to mean new buildings too. Since the 80s schools have had to spend more and more on staff and infrastructure for the information technology boom. Then add to that the things that universities have done to themselves. Some examples of that: the tre
    • No kidding, MU's tuition has gotten seriously high as of late. I guess all of those fake trees in the rec center were much more expensive than I thought...
  • PORN!
  • This is needed more than most people think. In a lot of college towns, ISPs are terrible and in some of the smaller towns there isn't any 3G to speak of. And the same problem persists even in medium-sized state schools which have a moderately to large sized computer science program.

  • The *AA will be after you. After all, fast internet is the breeding ground for pirates.

  • I was initially excited by this as I thought I might be able to get in on it -- however, this looks to be more along the lines of a business partnership (i.e., businesses can pay for the fiber, and the universities will provide the net access.
    • My local ISP, cruzio.com, has a similar deal with UC Santa Cruz. It has worked nicely as our DSL speeds are tripling. Cruzio is also expanding the fiber link around the Monterey Bay.

  • List of Members (Score:3, Informative)

    by chazchaz101 ( 871891 ) on Saturday July 30, 2011 @06:25PM (#36935598)
    From: http://www.gig-u.org/ [gig-u.org]
    • Arizona State University
    • Case Western Reserve University
    • Colorado State University
    • Duke University
    • George Mason University
    • Howard University
    • Indiana University
    • Michigan State University
    • North Carolina State University
    • Penn State University
    • University of Alaska
    • University of Chicago
    • University of Florida
    • University of Hawaii
    • University of Illinois
    • University of Kentucky
    • University of Louisville
    • University of Maryland
    • University of Michigan
    • University of Missouri
    • University of Montana
    • University of New Mexico
    • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • University of South Florida
    • University of Virginia
    • University of Washington
    • Virginia Tech
    • Wake Forest University
    • West Virginia University

  • super high speed connections (Score:3)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday July 30, 2011 @06:38PM (#36935674) Homepage Journal

    With super low use caps..

  • Texas A&M's version uses barbed wire.

  • Low unemployment? What? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IceFoot ( 256699 ) on Saturday July 30, 2011 @07:41PM (#36935986)

    "in communities with low unemployment"

    What the heck does low unemployment have to do with super high speed access?

  • >They hope to quickly build high-speed broadband networks in communities with low unemployment and heavy demand for such services So they're getting into the telecom business? And they expect the people they will compete with to build it for them? I smell agenda... uh uh... money... uh uh... opportunity! Yeah! That's it.
  • Hopefully it won't be horribly overtaxed, logged, tracked, and badly structured like most campus internet services. I actually trust the telcos more than I do universities when it comes to running a proper network.
  • Universities don't even make movies, why should they need sufficient bandwidth to seed?

  • Where do you find the best prices on stuff? Online, not in the store.. the in store prices are higher (except Circuit City before they closed up.. the last year or so they had the same price in all stores and on the web).

    How are a lot of services done now? Online. The yellow pages here no long publish people's phone numbers (mostly because of people switching numbers, moving, and the biggest.. cell phones). So if I want to find someone's number now, it's either 611 or (local exchange + 5252 or whatever) if

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