| WHOI currently gets access to the
Internet through two vendors, Genuity (formerly BBN) and Vitts.
On Friday, January 19, Vitts decided to go out of business and
informed us on the following Monday, January 22. They intend
to keep their network operational until the end of February,
so our Internet access should be unaffected during the next
several weeks.
Starting in March, however, we will most likely be faced
with a significant reduction in bandwidth to the Internet
and correspondingly a very noticeable slowdown in access across
the Internet. At present we have a total of 9 Megabits/second
(Mb/sec) of bandwidth to the Internet. Six Mb/sec is supplied
by Vitts and three Mb/sec by Genuity. We routinely use 4-5
Mb/sec during normal working hours with only occasional bursts
of activity requiring higher bandwidth. The 3 Mb/sec of service
from Genuity is not enough to adequately meet our needs.
CIS is working intensively to obtain services from another
provider to replace Vitts. We have already been in contact
with nearly a dozen possible providers and are starting detailed
discussions with the most promising candidates.
Unfortunately the time to establish new service with any
Internet provider is 3-4 months. We will do all we can do
to shorten this time, but it is unrealistic to plan on new
service being in place anytime before mid-April. This means
that we will have slow and congested access to the Internet
during March, April and possibly May. Over the next few weeks,
CIS will prepare some information on how we can best survive
this period of reduced Internet access.
Please note that this problem is for Internet access
only and will not effect our internal network and its services
such as e-mail and connections to other inside-WHOInet computers,
access to MBL, USGS, NMFS, WHRC and SEA, or dialup access
through RAS and PPP.
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