Internet1 vs Internet2

Some ITS experts have suggested that for many institutions there is no difference between the Internet and Internet2, except that the I2 pipeline is kept relatively free of traffic so that the full benefit of Broadband can be utilized in select events managed by the I2 Consortium. That seems to also be the gist of Alexander Russo's Internet2: It's Better, It's Faster. You Can't Use It. posted on Slate's Webhead.

Yet Russo seems to suggest that there are really substantive differences between I1 and I2:

While Internet1 is open to pretty much anyone with a computer, access to Internet2 is limited to a select few, and its backbone is made up entirely of large-capacity fiber-optic cables. Rather than Internet1, which is cobbled together out of old telephone lines, Internet2 was built for speed—the roads are all wide and smooth, like your own private autobahn. Internet2 moves data at 10 gigabits per second and more, compared with the 4 or so megabits you'll get using a cable modem. As a result, Internet2 moves data 100 to 1,000 times faster than the old-fashioned Internet.

However, it seems reasonable to think that the demand for swifter connections and more broadband will increase exponentially in the next few years and the record thus far is that the Internet developers have responded to these challenges with creative gusto. We are creating a world wide neural network in which I2 is merely the advance harbinger of a cyber consciousness just now awakening to a new world.

Exploring The Digital Terrain

Internet2 is a consortium of universities and research institutions experimenting with uses of broadband interactive Internet events. These events incorporate science, the arts, and education in interactive performances, productions, experiments, and educational applications.

The home of Internet2 provides a context by which to understand this undertaking, and the purpose of this newsblog is to keep abreast of these interactive Internet activities, especially those which have implications of how Internet2 can generate new ideas and new work.

Internet2 has also been called "the better internet that you can't use." This is true, since it is largely a consortium of universities and research entities and this elite membership controls the traffic on the pipeline. But the spirit of collaboration and interactivity seems more in line with the values expressed in Web 2.0 where consumers of content are replaced by creators of content.