C Spire and Mississippi State University have recently announced the successful testing of the state’s first terabit-speed network connection.
C Spire, working with Nokia and Canadian networking firm EXFO, tested the network in November in conjunction with MSU information technology staff using the C Spire data center on the university’s campus.
The test, which both entities announced last week, proves the capacity for the Mississippi Optical Network (MissiON) to provide networking speeds 1,000 times faster than 1 gigabit per second speeds currently on the market.
The MissiON network is a closed network, using C Spire’s existing fiber optic networks, that includes MSU, the University of Mississippi and its medical center, Jackson State University, the University of Southern Mississippi, Delta State University, Alcorn State University, the Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, the Stennis Space Center and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering Research and Development Center.
Eric Hollingsworth, C Spire vice president of network and service delivery, said the test shows that the MissiON network can provide speeds that are, as far as most modern computers are concerned, functionally unlimited.
“Most of the computers that we all have don’t run above about 100 gigs,” he said. “When you get above that, you’re providing bandwidth faster than most computers can use it anyway.”
He said the speed is important, particularly for research institutions because it allows them to share information quickly with each other.
A 1-terabit connection allows the downloading of 125 gigabytes per second. That’s fast enough to download a full season of “Game of Thrones,” 25 full-length movies in high definition, 2,083 hours of streaming music, 62,500 photos, or 695,000 web pages.
Hollingsworth added that C Spire has taken pains to make sure the network maintains a low latency. Latency is how quickly requests and responses are sent across a network connection. The lower the latency, the better, and Hollingsworth said the MissiON network has a latency in the single-digit milliseconds.
In a press release, David Shaw, MSU’s vice president of Research and Economic Development, said the network could play a crucial role in strengthening Mississippi’s economic development and business expansion efforts.
“Bolstering this network is critical in order to enhance our research institutions’ capacity to continue competing successfully for science and technology grants and funding from federal agencies, business and industry, foundations and private endowments,” Shaw said. “We’re operating in an increasingly competitive environment, and MissiON is an indispensable resource in our efforts.”
Dave Miller, C Spire senior manager of media relations, said that research network speed is an important consideration for those grants. He also said that, while terabit network speeds have been achieved in other states on “much larger” research networks, the test puts Mississippi on the forefront of what is still a newly-developing field.
“While some people may say ‘Oh, it’s Mississippi,’ we don’t have to take second fiddle to any other network as far as the capabilities that we’ve built and the infrastructure and dependability,” Miller said. “We don’t take a back seat to anyone.”
The MissiON network provides the capability for terabit-speed internet connections at the campuses that are connected. However, Hollingsworth said that capacity as a functional reality is likely years off, as technology such as WiFi access points and ethernet cables have to improve
“It’s absolutely possible at some point,” he said. “I don’t think anybody sees where it comes over the horizon yet.”
Similarly, Hollingsworth said, the full speed of the terabit network will be ready to go when institutions can fully use it.
“We’ll be ready when they’re ready,” he said. “Right now, they wouldn’t be capable of leveraging that much bandwidth, so they’re not going to ask us to deliver it until then. The big takeaway is that our network is ready and with the design and infrastructure in place, we can do it almost at the flip of a switch.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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