VPnet has established three committees to focus on the future strategic direction of the consortium:

1. The Business Development & Marketing committee has been formed to assist in defining and implementing strategic activities for marketing VPnet to current and new members.  This includes promoting VPnet’s visibility at the regional and national level and growing membership and utilization.  The primary objectives of this committee over the next 12 months include:

• Increase awareness of VPnet’s potential among current members
• Increase utilization of the VPnet network
• Grow membership of the consortium locally and regionally

2. The Funding committee has been formed to identify and implement funding strategies for VPnet.  Additionally, this committee will provide a “match making” function between the VPnet members in identifying similar funding opportunities between institutions, faculty and researchers.  As such, this committee will provide a coordination function to create opportunities for various funding sources.  The committee is currently focusing on two primary objectives:

• Working with federal lobbyists (Preston, Gates, Ellis) in Washington, D.C. to identify and obtain federal appropriations for VPnet.
• Coordination of lobbying efforts with VPnet members to maximize funding opportunities for VPnet and respective member organizations

3. The Technology committee has been formed to provide overall technical vision, strategy and implementation planning and direction.  This committee will ensure that the VPnet infrastructure is continually capable of providing the capacity necessary for the projects and applications being developed on the network.

All three committees have VPnet Board representation to ensure that all activities are coordinated and remain in alignment with the overall mission and vision of VPnet.

     Gigapop is a gigabit point-of-presence, and an access point to Internet2 for network collaboration between universities and partners in industry and government to develop advanced Internet technologies and applications.

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is a non-profit Internet Exchange (501c3), based in Seattle, Washington.  VPnet and the City of Spokane have been exploring the possibility of establishing an eastern Washington Gigapop node.  Establishing a Gigapop node in our region would:

• Provide a high-speed, state-of-the-art network and regional connection point

• Provide 10Gbps connectivity between Spokane and Seattle

• Connect VPnet members to the National LambdaRail project and other national and international research and education networks

• Enable VPnet members to freely communicate with any other PNWGP member (via “peering and exchange services”). 

• Be a complementary service to VPnet by providing much greater bandwidth (10Gbps) between Spokane and Seattle than the current bandwidth (155Mbps) maintained by VPnet.

The City of Spokane is leading a $5M legislative request ($1 million per year over five years) that would establish the Eastern Washington Gigapop node and provide two years of operational support, as well as provide UW operational funding to manage the optical system.  The City of Spokane is facilitating the funding request on behalf of the region.  It is not a university-funding request, although the major universities are supportive of the legislative effort.

For more information about PNWGP, please visit www.pnwgigapop.org