September 28, 2004
Austin, Texas,

State optical fiber network initiative to connect 14 cities and 25 universities for greater research and educational opportunities

At the opening session of the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst announced that $9.8 million would be made available from the Texas Enterprise Fund to support higher education and high performance computing efforts in Texas. "We applaud the Governor and Lieutenant Governor for their efforts in making the dream of our 31 member universities, college associations, and medical centers a reality," said Jim Williams, executive director of the Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN).

LEARN will be allocated $7.3 million to build an optical fiber network that will interconnect 14 cities and 25 universities. The remaining $2.5 million is being allocated to the members of the High Performance Computing Across Texas (HiPCAT) university consortium for the development and deployment of the Texas Internet Grid for Research and Education (TIGRE). The TIGRE initiative will be among the first beneficiaries of the advanced networking capabilities of LEARN.

"For Texas to stay competitive in the arenas of research and economic development, a network like LEARN is not a luxury, but a necessity," said Dan Updegrove, Vice President for Information Technology for The University of Texas at Austin and Chairman of the Board of LEARN. "We are extremely excited about today's announcement, and look forward to providing the State of Texas with a network that enhances the educational endeavors and research pursuits of students and faculty in our state."

The deployment of LEARN will provide higher education institutions with high bandwidth transport to national networks and systems including the commodity Internet, the National LambdaRail, Internet2 (Abilene), and TeraGrid. "With the realization of LEARN, the returns on investment for Texas will range from lower cost and higher reliability access to the Internet and Internet2 Abilene network to support for a state-wide educational Intranet for K-20 to service deployment for telemedicine and homeland defense," said Williams. "The announcement today puts us one step closer to connecting Texas higher education institutions to each other and to research networks across the country and around the world."

About LEARN

The Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN) is a cooperative effort of 31 institutions and organizations of higher education in Texas to provide high-speedl connectivity among their institutions as well as to research networks around the world in support of the higher education's research, teaching, health care, and public service missions.

More on LEARN can be found by visiting their Web site at http://www.tx-learn.net/.

About TIGRE

The Texas Internet Grid for Research and Education (TIGRE) is a collaborative project of the High-Performance Computing Across Texas (HiPCAT) university consortium, which will integrate the computing, visualization, and storage systems of HiPCAT institutions.

For more on TIGRE, its development, vision, and deployment, please contact
Tina Romanella de Marquez by e-mail at tina@tacc.utexas.edu or by phone at (512) 475-9411. Information is also available online at the TIGRE homepage at http://www.hipcat.net/projects/tigre.php.

For details, contact:
John Chivvis, PR Coordinator
Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN)
Phone: (979) 845-5093
E-mail: chiv@tamu.edu Lonestar Education and Research Network
Phone: (512) 475-8754
Fax: (512) 232-9607
E-mail: info@tx-learn.net
Web: www.tx-learn.net